tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-612731037367610064Wed, 16 Aug 2017 00:35:22 +0000ResearchAncestral PlacesDavisScotlandAncestral FacesBooksMcCarthySoftwareBlogsLoweNewspapersPoliceWinnBentleyFriends and MentorsClergyLondonSurnamesAvesCanadaCensusClarkCrimeFritzGoogleNew ZealandPoetrySNGFTNAAngusAustraliaBluettColesHaliburtonHayMundenRaymanRoyaltySmythArchivesArmyBaldwinBlack SheepBrick WallsDorsetEssexFamily Tree MakerGraveyardsGurneyHealeHoodKinlochMarinersPassenger ListsSOGSmithTomlinUSAAberdeenshireBedfordshireBlakeyCatesChristmasEatonFifeFilmsFind My PastGibbGlenisterHaldaneKeatsKentLeeMalcolmMedicineMusicNamesNavyNippardObituariesOgilvyPantherPhotographsPrebbleRailwayReidScanningSnellingStablesStewartTNGTaylorWilesWillsWiltshireCaro's Family Chroniclesstories from my family history and tips on how to researchhttp://cmgurney.blogspot.com/noreply@blogger.com (Caroline Gurney)Blogger69125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-612731037367610064.post-4560255606898299156Sun, 11 Nov 2012 16:07:00 +00002012-11-11T17:05:57.064+00:00ArmyAustraliaBentleyClarkColesDavisFritzGurneyHayMcCarthyMundenNavyNew ZealandPoetrySmithSurnamesTomlinWinnLest We Forget: 11/11/12<p align="justify"><font size="3">In memory of the members of our family who gave their lives in the service of their country. This list has been updated from last year, with the addition of five more names to the World War 1 Roll of Honour. The list now contains three sets of brothers.</font></p> <p align="justify"><font size="3"></font>&nbsp;</p> <p align="justify"><a href="http://lh3.ggpht.com/-NC9C6ONSCa8/Tr0EscysHGI/AAAAAAAACEg/pAEMZ4im-u4/s1600-h/Poppy%25255B8%25255D.jpg"><font size="3"><img style="margin: 0px 30px 0px 0px; display: inline; float: left" title="Poppy" alt="Poppy" align="left" src="http://lh6.ggpht.com/-u0qlm3yzs0A/Tr0EtDfYwyI/AAAAAAAACEk/QBRMgN3kyOE/Poppy_thumb%25255B5%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="116" height="133"></font></a><font size="3"><em>They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:<br>Age shall not weary them, nor the years contemn.<br>At the going down of the sun and in the morning<br>We will remember them.</em> </font></p> <blockquote> <p align="justify"><font size="3">(Lawrence Binyon, <em>For the Fallen</em>, 1914)&nbsp; </font></p> <p align="justify"><font size="3"></font>&nbsp;</p></blockquote> <table border="0" cellspacing="4" width="692"> <tbody> <tr> <td valign="top" width="97"> <p align="left"><strong><font size="2">Died</font></strong></p></td> <td valign="top" width="74"> <p align="left"><strong><font size="2">Place</font></strong></p></td> <td valign="top" width="94"> <p align="left"><strong><font size="2">Rank</font></strong></p></td> <td valign="top" width="185"> <p align="left"><strong><font size="2">Name</font></strong></p></td> <td valign="top" width="26"> <p align="left"><strong><font size="2">Age</font></strong></p></td> <td valign="top" width="186"> <p align="left"><strong><font size="2">Regiment / Service</font></strong></p></td></tr> <tr> <td valign="top" width="97"><font size="3"></font></td> <td valign="top" width="74"><font size="3"></font></td> <td valign="top" width="94"><font size="3"></font></td> <td valign="top" width="185"><font size="3"></font></td> <td valign="top" width="26"><font size="3"></font></td> <td valign="top" width="186"><font size="3"></font></td></tr> <tr> <td valign="top" width="97"><strong><font size="2">Afghan Wars</font></strong></td> <td valign="top" width="74"><font size="2"></font></td> <td valign="top" width="94"><font size="2"></font></td> <td valign="top" width="185"><font size="2"></font></td> <td valign="top" width="26"><font size="2"></font></td> <td valign="top" width="186"><font size="2"></font></td></tr> <tr> <td valign="top" width="97"><font size="2"></font></td> <td valign="top" width="74"><font size="2"></font></td> <td valign="top" width="94"><font size="2"></font></td> <td valign="top" width="185"><font size="2"></font></td> <td valign="top" width="26"><font size="2"></font></td> <td valign="top" width="186"><font size="2"></font></td></tr> <tr> <td valign="top" width="97"><font size="2">12 Jan 1842</font></td> <td valign="top" width="74"><font size="2">Afghanistan</font></td> <td valign="top" width="94"><font size="2">Captain</font></td> <td valign="top" width="185"><a title="Edward Macleod Blair" href="http://www.carosfamily.com/getperson.php?personID=I3522&amp;tree=mytree" target="_blank"><font size="2">Edward Macleod Blair</font></a></td> <td valign="top" width="26"><font size="2">38</font></td> <td valign="top" width="186"><font size="2">Bengal Light Cavalry</font></td></tr> <tr> <td valign="top" width="97"><font size="2"></font></td> <td valign="top" width="74"><font size="2"></font></td> <td valign="top" width="94"><font size="2"></font></td> <td valign="top" width="185"><font size="2"></font></td> <td valign="top" width="26"><font size="2"></font></td> <td valign="top" width="186"><font size="2"></font></td></tr> <tr> <td valign="top" width="97"><strong><font size="2">Indian Mutiny</font></strong></td> <td valign="top" width="74"><font size="2"></font></td> <td valign="top" width="94"><font size="2"></font></td> <td valign="top" width="185"><font size="2"></font></td> <td valign="top" width="26"><font size="2"></font></td> <td valign="top" width="186"><font size="2"></font></td></tr> <tr> <td valign="top" width="97"><font size="2"></font></td> <td valign="top" width="74"><font size="2"></font></td> <td valign="top" width="94"><font size="2"></font></td> <td valign="top" width="185"><font size="2"></font></td> <td valign="top" width="26"><font size="2"></font></td> <td valign="top" width="186"><font size="2"></font></td></tr> <tr> <td valign="top" width="97"><font size="2">14 May 1858</font></td> <td valign="top" width="74"><font size="2">India</font></td> <td valign="top" width="94"><font size="2">Major</font></td> <td valign="top" width="185"><a title="John Waterfield" href="http://www.carosfamily.com/getperson.php?personID=I3544&amp;tree=mytree" target="_blank"><font size="2">John Waterfield</font></a></td> <td valign="top" width="26"><font size="2">40</font></td> <td valign="top" width="186"><font size="2">Bengal Native Infantry</font></td></tr> <tr> <td valign="top" width="97"><font size="2"></font></td> <td valign="top" width="74"><font size="2"></font></td> <td valign="top" width="94"><font size="2"></font></td> <td valign="top" width="185"><font size="2"></font></td> <td valign="top" width="26"><font size="2"></font></td> <td valign="top" width="186"><font size="2"></font></td></tr> <tr> <td valign="top" width="97"><strong><font size="2">Boer War</font></strong></td> <td valign="top" width="74"><font size="2"></font></td> <td valign="top" width="94"><font size="2"></font></td> <td valign="top" width="185"><font size="2"></font></td> <td valign="top" width="26"><font size="2"></font></td> <td valign="top" width="186"><font size="2"></font></td></tr> <tr> <td valign="top" width="97"><font size="2"></font></td> <td valign="top" width="74"><font size="2"></font></td> <td valign="top" width="94"><font size="2"></font></td> <td valign="top" width="185"><font size="2"></font></td> <td valign="top" width="26"><font size="2"></font></td> <td valign="top" width="186"><font size="2"></font></td></tr> <tr> <td valign="top" width="97"><font size="2">14 Feb 1902</font></td> <td valign="top" width="74"><font size="2">South Africa</font></td> <td valign="top" width="94"><font size="2">Artificer</font></td> <td valign="top" width="185"><a title="George Howard Clark" href="http://www.carosfamily.com/getperson.php?personID=I439&amp;tree=mytree" target="_blank"><font size="2">George Howard Clark</font></a></td> <td valign="top" width="26"><font size="2">23</font></td> <td valign="top" width="186"><font size="2">Queensland Imperial Bushmen</font></td></tr> <tr> <td valign="top" width="97"><font size="3"></font></td> <td valign="top" width="74"><font size="3"></font></td> <td valign="top" width="94"><font size="3"></font></td> <td valign="top" width="185"><font size="3"></font></td> <td valign="top" width="26"><font size="3"></font></td> <td valign="top" width="186"><font size="3"></font></td></tr> <tr> <td valign="top" width="97"><strong><font size="2">World War 1</font></strong></td> <td valign="top" width="74"><font size="2"></font></td> <td valign="top" width="94"><font size="2"></font></td> <td valign="top" width="185"><font size="2"></font></td> <td valign="top" width="26"><font size="2"></font></td> <td valign="top" width="186"><font size="2"></font></td></tr> <tr> <td valign="top" width="97"><font size="2"></font></td> <td valign="top" width="74"><font size="2"></font></td> <td valign="top" width="94"><font size="2"></font></td> <td valign="top" width="185"><font size="2"></font></td> <td valign="top" width="26"><font size="2"></font></td> <td valign="top" width="186"><font size="2"></font></td></tr> <tr> <td valign="top" width="97"><font size="2">25 Apr1915</font></td> <td valign="top" width="74"><font size="2">France</font></td> <td valign="top" width="94"><font size="2">Private</font></td> <td valign="top" width="185"><a title="Richard Michael Ryan" href="http://www.carosfamily.com/getperson.php?personID=I1029&amp;tree=mytree" target="_blank"><font size="2">Richard Michael Ryan</font></a></td> <td valign="top" width="26"><font size="2">25</font></td> <td valign="top" width="186"><font size="2">Royal Irish Fusiliers</font></td></tr> <tr> <td valign="top" width="97"><font size="2">9 May 1915</font></td> <td valign="top" width="74"><font size="2">France</font></td> <td valign="top" width="94"><font size="2">Corporal</font></td> <td valign="top" width="185"><a title="Charles Mulligan" href="http://www.carosfamily.com/getperson.php?personID=I3066&amp;tree=mytree" target="_blank"><font size="2">Charles Mulligan</font></a></td> <td valign="top" width="26"><font size="2">28</font></td> <td valign="top" width="186"></font><font size="2">Black Watch</font></td></tr> <tr> <td valign="top" width="97"><font size="2">9 May 1915</font></td> <td valign="top" width="74"><font size="2">France</font></td> <td valign="top" width="94"><font size="2">Rifleman</font></td> <td valign="top" width="185"><a title="Thomas Stanley Groves" href="http://www.carosfamily.com/getperson.php?personID=I1059&amp;tree=mytree" target="_blank"><font size="2">Thomas Stanley Groves</font></a></td> <td valign="top" width="26"><font size="2">31</font></td> <td valign="top" width="186"><font size="2">Royal Irish Rifles</font></td></tr> <tr> <td valign="top" width="97"><font size="2">27 Jun 1915</font></td> <td valign="top" width="74"><font size="2">Belgium</font></td> <td valign="top" width="94"><font size="2">Private</font></td> <td valign="top" width="185"><a title="John Julius Groves" href="http://www.carosfamily.com/getperson.php?personID=I1058&amp;tree=mytree" target="_blank"><font size="2">John Julius Groves</font></a></td> <td valign="top" width="26"><font size="2">32</font></td> <td valign="top" width="186"><font size="2">DCLI</font></td></tr> <tr> <td valign="top" width="97">24 Aug 1916</td> <td valign="top" width="74">France</td> <td valign="top" width="94">2nd Lieutenant</td> <td valign="top" width="185"><a title="2nd Lieutenant Lawrence Ernest Bennett" href="http://www.carosfamily.com/getperson.php?personID=I5722&amp;tree=mytree" target="_blank">Lawrence Ernest Bennett</a></td> <td valign="top" width="26">22</td> <td valign="top" width="186">Queen’s Regiment</td></tr> <tr> <td valign="top" width="97"><font size="2">15 Sep 1916</font></td> <td valign="top" width="74"><font size="2">France</font></td> <td valign="top" width="94"><font size="2">Gunner</font></td> <td valign="top" width="185"><a title="Cyril William Coles" href="http://www.carosfamily.com/getperson.php?personID=I1705&amp;tree=mytree" target="_blank"><font size="2">Cyril William Coles</font></a></td> <td valign="top" width="26"><font size="2">23</font></td> <td valign="top" width="186"><font size="2">Tank Corps</font></td></tr> <tr> <td valign="top" width="97"><font size="2">18 Oct 1916</font></td> <td valign="top" width="74"><font size="2">France</font></td> <td valign="top" width="94"><font size="2">2nd Lieutenant</font></td> <td valign="top" width="185"><a title="Christopher Gilbert Durant" href="http://www.carosfamily.com/getperson.php?personID=I1691&amp;tree=mytree" target="_blank"><font size="2">Christopher Gilbert Durant</font></a></td> <td valign="top" width="26"><font size="2">20</font></td> <td valign="top" width="186"><font size="2">Worcestershire Regiment</font></td></tr> <tr> <td valign="top" width="97"><font size="2">10 Jan 1917</font></td> <td valign="top" width="74"><font size="2">Egypt</font></td> <td valign="top" width="94"><font size="2">Captain</font></td> <td valign="top" width="185"><a title="Duncan James Nugent Blair" href="http://www.carosfamily.com/getperson.php?personID=I3536&amp;tree=mytree" target="_blank"><font size="2">Duncan James Nugent Blair</font></a></td> <td valign="top" width="26"><font size="2">34</font></td> <td valign="top" width="186"><font size="2">Royal Field Artillery</font></td></tr> <tr> <td valign="top" width="97"><font size="2">26 Mar 1917</font></td> <td valign="top" width="74"><font size="2">Palestine</font></td> <td valign="top" width="94"><font size="2">Private</font></td> <td valign="top" width="185"><a title="William Gurney" href="http://www.carosfamily.com/getperson.php?personID=I2452&amp;tree=mytree" target="_blank"><font size="2">William Gurney</font></a></td> <td valign="top" width="26"><font size="2">21</font></td> <td valign="top" width="186"><font size="2">Middlesex Regiment</font></td></tr> <tr> <td valign="top" width="97">19 Apr 1917</td> <td valign="top" width="74">France</td> <td valign="top" width="94">Private</td> <td valign="top" width="185"><a title="Private Arthur Tom Munden" href="http://www.carosfamily.com/getperson.php?personID=I1527&amp;tree=mytree" target="_blank">Arthur Tom Munden</a></td> <td valign="top" width="26">31</td> <td valign="top" width="186">Hampshire Regiment</td></tr> <tr> <td valign="top" width="97"><font size="2">23 Apr 1917</font></td> <td valign="top" width="74"><font size="2">France</font></td> <td valign="top" width="94"><font size="2">Lance Corporal</font></td> <td valign="top" width="185"><a title="Hubert Gurney" href="http://www.carosfamily.com/getperson.php?personID=I2451&amp;tree=mytree" target="_blank"><font size="2">Hubert Gurney</font></a></td> <td valign="top" width="26"><font size="2">21</font></td> <td valign="top" width="186"><font size="2">Middlesex Regiment</font></td></tr> <tr> <td valign="top" width="97"><font size="2">10 Jul 1917</font></td> <td valign="top" width="74"><font size="2">Belgium</font></td> <td valign="top" width="94"><font size="2">Lieutenant</font></td> <td valign="top" width="185"><a title="Sanford William Shippard" href="http://www.carosfamily.com/getperson.php?personID=I5338&amp;tree=mytree" target="_blank"><font size="2">Sanford William Shippard</font></a></td> <td valign="top" width="26"><font size="2">21</font></td> <td valign="top" width="186"><font size="2">North Lancashire Regiment</font></td></tr> <tr> <td valign="top" width="97"><font size="2">12 Aug 1917</font></td> <td valign="top" width="74"><font size="2">Greece</font></td> <td valign="top" width="94"><font size="2">Private</font></td> <td valign="top" width="185"><a title="Ernest John Bentley" href="http://www.carosfamily.com/getperson.php?personID=I1324&amp;tree=mytree" target="_blank"><font size="2">Ernest John Bentley</font></a></td> <td valign="top" width="26"><font size="2">41</font></td> <td valign="top" width="186"><font size="2">Durham Light Infantry</font></td></tr> <tr> <td valign="top" width="97"><font size="2">16 Oct 1917</font></td> <td valign="top" width="74"><font size="2">France</font></td> <td valign="top" width="94"><font size="2">Private</font></td> <td valign="top" width="185"><a title="Private Frederick Alexander Drackett" href="http://www.carosfamily.com/getperson.php?personID=I5462&amp;tree=mytree" target="_blank"><font size="2">Frederick Alexander Drackett</font></a></td> <td valign="top" width="26"><font size="2">21</font></td> <td valign="top" width="186"><font size="2">Hampshire Regiment</font></td></tr> <tr> <td valign="top" width="97">9 Apr 1918</td> <td valign="top" width="74">Palestine</td> <td valign="top" width="94">Lieutenant</td> <td valign="top" width="185"><a title="Lieutenant Gilbert Seymour Worsley Spencer-Smith" href="http://www.carosfamily.com/getperson.php?personID=I5568&amp;tree=mytree" target="_blank">Gilbert Seymour Worsley Spencer-Smith</a></td> <td valign="top" width="26">23</td> <td valign="top" width="186">Hampshire Regiment</td></tr> <tr> <td valign="top" width="97"><font size="2">11 May 1918</font></td> <td valign="top" width="74"><font size="2">France</font></td> <td valign="top" width="94"><font size="2">Captain</font></td> <td valign="top" width="185"><a title="Arthur Alexander Austen-Leigh" href="http://www.carosfamily.com/getperson.php?personID=I3474&amp;tree=mytree" target="_blank"><font size="2">Arthur Alexander Austen-Leigh</font></a></td> <td valign="top" width="26"><font size="2">27</font></td> <td valign="top" width="186"><font size="2">Royal Berkshire Regiment</font></td></tr> <tr> <td valign="top" width="97"><font size="2">18 Sep 1918</font></td> <td valign="top" width="74"><font size="2">France</font></td> <td valign="top" width="94"><font size="2">Captain</font></td> <td valign="top" width="185"><a title="Captain Eric Fairfax Bennett MC" href="http://www.carosfamily.com/getperson.php?personID=I5723&amp;tree=mytree" target="_blank"><font size="2">Eric Fairfax Bennett MC</font></a></td> <td valign="top" width="26"><font size="2">20</font></td> <td valign="top" width="186"><font size="2">Queen’s Regiment</font></td></tr> <tr> <td valign="top" width="97">&nbsp;</td> <td valign="top" width="74">&nbsp;</td> <td valign="top" width="94">&nbsp;</td> <td valign="top" width="185">&nbsp;</td> <td valign="top" width="26">&nbsp;</td> <td valign="top" width="186">&nbsp;</td></tr> <tr> <td valign="top" width="97"><strong><font size="2">World War 2</font></strong></td> <td valign="top" width="74"><font size="2"></font></td> <td valign="top" width="94"><font size="2"></font></td> <td valign="top" width="185"><font size="2"></font></td> <td valign="top" width="26"><font size="2"></font></td> <td valign="top" width="186"><font size="2"></font></td></tr> <tr> <td valign="top" width="97"><font size="2"></font></td> <td valign="top" width="74"><font size="2"></font></td> <td valign="top" width="94"><font size="2"></font></td> <td valign="top" width="185"><font size="2"></font></td> <td valign="top" width="26"><font size="2"></font></td> <td valign="top" width="186"><font size="2"></font></td></tr> <tr> <td valign="top" width="97"><font size="2">21 Jun 1940</font></td> <td valign="top" width="74"><font size="2">at sea</font></td> <td valign="top" width="94"><font size="2">Sub Lieutenant</font></td> <td valign="top" width="185"><a title="Ian Reginald Winn Stileman" href="http://www.carosfamily.com/getperson.php?personID=I3934&amp;tree=mytree" target="_blank"><font size="2">Ian Reginald Winn Stileman</font></a></td> <td valign="top" width="26"><font size="2">20</font></td> <td valign="top" width="186"><font size="2">RNVR</font></td></tr> <tr> <td valign="top" width="97"><font size="2">21 May 1941</font></td> <td valign="top" width="74"><font size="2">Crete</font></td> <td valign="top" width="94"><font size="2">Driver</font></td> <td valign="top" width="185"><a title="Robert George Davis" href="http://www.carosfamily.com/getperson.php?personID=I975&amp;tree=mytree" target="_blank"><font size="2">Robert George Davis</font></a></td> <td valign="top" width="26"><font size="2">25</font></td> <td valign="top" width="186"><font size="2">NZ Army Service Corps</font></td></tr> <tr> <td valign="top" width="97"><font size="2">28 Oct 1942</font></td> <td valign="top" width="74"><font size="2">Egypt</font></td> <td valign="top" width="94"><font size="2">Private</font></td> <td valign="top" width="185"><a title="Ronald Archibald Halkett-Hay" href="http://www.carosfamily.com/getperson.php?personID=I4698&amp;tree=mytree" target="_blank"><font size="2">Ronald Archibald Halkett-Hay</font></a></td> <td valign="top" width="26"><font size="2">34</font></td> <td valign="top" width="186"><font size="2">Australian Infantry</font></td></tr> <tr> <td valign="top" width="97"><font size="2">3 Nov 1942</font></td> <td valign="top" width="74"><font size="2">Egypt</font></td> <td valign="top" width="94"><font size="2">Lieutenant</font></td> <td valign="top" width="185"><a title="Nigel Aves Watson" href="http://www.carosfamily.com/getperson.php?personID=I726&amp;tree=mytree" target="_blank"><font size="2">Nigel Aves Watson</font></a></td> <td valign="top" width="26"><font size="2">22</font></td> <td valign="top" width="186"><font size="2">Royal Hussars</font></td></tr> <tr> <td valign="top" width="97"><font size="2">13 Jul 1943</font></td> <td valign="top" width="74"><font size="2">Italy</font></td> <td valign="top" width="94"><font size="2">Lieutenant</font></td> <td valign="top" width="185"><a title="Derek Pease Gregg" href="http://www.carosfamily.com/getperson.php?personID=I923&amp;tree=mytree" target="_blank"><font size="2">Derek Pease Gregg</font></a></td> <td valign="top" width="26"><font size="2">26</font></td> <td valign="top" width="186"><font size="2">Glider Pilot Regiment</font></td></tr></tbody></table> <p><font size="3"></font></p> http://cmgurney.blogspot.com/2011/11/lest-we-forget-111111.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Caroline Gurney)4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-612731037367610064.post-1386581846304988643Mon, 29 Oct 2012 02:33:00 +00002012-10-29T02:45:08.587+00:00AngusBooksKinlochLoweMedicineScotlandSmythPolitics and Pills – an 1820 Medical Bill: Part 2<p><font size="3">This is my second post about the 1820 medical bill I recently bought on eBay. You can read Part 1 of the post <a title="Politics and Pills &ndash; an 1820 Medical Bill: Part 1" href="http://cmgurney.blogspot.com/2012/10/politics-and-pills-1820-medical-bill.html" target="_blank">here</a>.</font></p> <p><font size="3"></font>&nbsp;</p> <p><a href="http://lh6.ggpht.com/-c4lp2Kveveg/UI3q7kbK9DI/AAAAAAAACY4/Fa6sNPDlEfQ/s1600-h/1820%252520bill%2525203%252520cropped%25255B12%25255D.jpg"><img style="background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: block; float: none; margin-left: auto; border-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; border-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px" title="1820 medical bill" border="0" alt="1820 medical bill " src="http://lh4.ggpht.com/-8Hasbv_3DxA/UI3q8-vTJRI/AAAAAAAACY8/mhfLJ8Y0AEY/1820%252520bill%2525203%252520cropped_thumb%25255B8%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="650" height="603"></a></p> <p><font size="3"></font>&nbsp;</p> <p><font size="3">The first thing that struck me when I saw the bill was that it covered a long period of time. The first entry was for treatment on 17 July 1817 and the last for treatment on 7 March 1820. I already knew that, during the Regency period, it was common for wealthy people to run up extensive debts with tradesmen, who often weren’t paid for years. I did not realise that this practice also extended to professional accounts. </font></p> <p align="justify"><font size="3">In his covering letter, Dr Lowe said that he was “taking the liberty” of sending the account – suggesting that it was almost considered improper to ask for payment. My cousin in Canada has kindly sent me a copy of a letter, written to Dr Lowe in January 1819, in which a friend said, “I made particular enquiries about you &amp; it gave me sincere pleasure to learn that you were so well employed &amp; in such high estimation with the first class of society”. No doubt Dr Lowe was gratified to hear this but, if “the first class of society” were all so dilatory in settling their bills, it must have been difficult for him to support his growing family.</font></p> <p align="justify"><font size="3"></font>&nbsp;</p> <p align="justify"><a href="http://lh5.ggpht.com/-iqQMzeU4-8k/UI3q9xj8lmI/AAAAAAAACZI/_Htl3w-9Gao/s1600-h/Lowe%252520Dr%252520John%25255B6%25255D.jpg"><img style="background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: block; float: none; margin-left: auto; border-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; border-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px" title="Dr John Lowe" border="0" alt="Dr John Lowe" src="http://lh3.ggpht.com/--9HGB2VveSw/UI3q_HkBibI/AAAAAAAACZM/cfrD_FaXy0k/Lowe%252520Dr%252520John_thumb%25255B3%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="364" height="481"></a></p> <p align="justify"><font size="3"></font>&nbsp;</p> <p align="justify"><font size="3">Dr John Lowe was born in 1781, the eldest son of Robert Lowe, laird of Chapelton, Tullymet, Perthshire, an estate in the parish of Logierait, comprising a number of farms which had once belonged to the Duke of Atholl. For three years, from 1794 to 1797, John was apprenticed to Dr Alexander Stewart, a surgeon in Dunkeld, and in 1799 he was a medical student at the University of Edinburgh, although he never took a degree. </font></p> <p align="justify"><font size="3">John joined the East India Company as an Assistant Surgeon and had just arrived back from a voyage to the East Indies when, in 1801, his father unexpectedly died. John inherited a considerable amount of landed property from his father but it was encumbered with debt and he was eventually forced to sell it. John left the Company’s service after his second voyage and in 1803 was working as a surgeon and druggist in Perth. By 1807 he had moved to Coupar Angus.</font></p> <p align="justify"><font size="3">John Lowe married Janet Gillespie in Perth in 1806 and they had one child, Elizabeth, born in Coupar Angus in 1807. Following Janet’s death, John married Marjory Clark in Coupar Angus in 1810 and they had 13 children between 1811 and 1832. I am descended from their second son, John. </font></p> <p align="justify"><font size="3"></font>&nbsp;</p> <p align="justify"><a href="http://lh6.ggpht.com/-WCp4SaUblCM/UI3rAbELegI/AAAAAAAACZU/z_NZI6PsxEQ/s1600-h/Calomel%252520Pills%25255B5%25255D.jpg"><img style="background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: block; float: none; margin-left: auto; border-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; border-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px" title="Calomel Pills" border="0" alt="Calomel Pills" src="http://lh5.ggpht.com/-nMBk1QUEKg0/UI3rBnbFQWI/AAAAAAAACZc/Vzy0_GpJqNA/Calomel%252520Pills_thumb%25255B3%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="183" height="438"></a></p> <p align="justify"><font size="3"></font>&nbsp;</p> <p align="justify"><font size="3">Returning to the bill, the next thing I noticed was that the bill contained three entries for “Calomel pills”, supplied in March 1818 and in March and December 1819. I had never heard of this medicine before and vaguely supposed it was something to do with calamine. Imagine my horror on learning from Wikipedia that it was actually <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercury(I)_chloride" target="_blank">mercurous chloride</a>, a poisonous compound of mercury. Before the age of modern medicine, calomel was widely used as a laxative and purgative and was even given to teething babies! </font></p> <p align="justify"><font size="3">Charles Tennant noted in his book, “<em>The Radical Laird</em>”:</font></p> <blockquote> <p align="justify"><font size="3"><em>George Kinloch had his own ideas about health and hygiene and, for most people, his advice was a good dose of "Dr Calomel”, as he attributed the usual complaints to constipation. “I wish you would get a box of calomel pills, three grains in each, of which you might take one when you have occasion for it. It is the best of all physic, and if taken in time often prevents serious diseases.”</em></font></p></blockquote> <p align="justify"><font size="3">In the summer of 1815 George wrote to his wife from London:</font></p> <blockquote> <p align="justify"><font size="3"><em>“I have been in perfect health since I left you, till Sunday last, when I had an attack of bile, which has not yet left me. I mean tonight to apply to Dr Calomel, who will rid me of it.”</em> </font></p></blockquote> <p align="justify"><font size="3">The day on which Dr Lowe supplied him with his last prescription for calomel – 8 December 1819 – was the day before George left Kinloch for Edinburgh to prepare for his trial. He obviously wanted to take some of his favourite medicine with him – probably fearing a prison term - and Dr Lowe must have been one of the last people in the district to see George Kinloch before he left his home, not to return for over three years.</font></p> <p align="justify"><font size="3"></font>&nbsp;</p> <p align="justify"><a href="http://lh6.ggpht.com/-glJbXtR-Qow/UI3rCTYLq4I/AAAAAAAACZo/LvbFr1ny8M0/s1600-h/Dental%252520key%25255B6%25255D.jpg"><img style="background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: block; float: none; margin-left: auto; border-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; border-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px" title="Use of the dental key" border="0" alt="Use of the dental key" src="http://lh4.ggpht.com/-ahraAsGEEac/UI3rDbS1FhI/AAAAAAAACZs/NHyUhfUfwUM/Dental%252520key_thumb%25255B4%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="373" height="556"></a></p> <p align="justify"><font size="3"></font>&nbsp;</p> <p align="justify"><font size="3">The bill also includes charges for bleeding – another horrific medical practice of the time – and for extracting teeth. Extraction was the normal way of dealing with persistent toothache and with problems such as abscesses which would nowadays be treated with antibiotics. The tooth was removed using an instrument called a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dental_key" target="_blank">dental key</a> and, of course, it was done without any form of anaesthetic. I imagine the toothache must have been pretty bad before anyone would invite Dr Lowe to visit them with his dental key!</font></p> <p align="justify"><font size="3">The bill covers treatment not just for George Kinloch but also for Mr Gray (a relative of the Smyths) and for two of George’s daughters. Ann was 17 when she had her tooth extracted and Eliza 16 when she was vaccinated. The vaccination took place a month before George’s family left to join him in Paris. 24 years after Jenner’s first vaccination, smallpox epidemics were still occurring in crowded cities. Sadly, Eliza contracted another scourge of crowded cities – tuberculosis – and died shortly after her return from Paris in 1822.</font></p> http://cmgurney.blogspot.com/2012/10/politics-and-pills-1820-medical-bill_29.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Caroline Gurney)2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-612731037367610064.post-8168629365758670828Sun, 28 Oct 2012 02:16:00 +00002012-10-29T03:04:25.433+00:00AngusBooksClarkHayKinlochLoweScotlandSmythPolitics and Pills – an 1820 Medical Bill: Part 1<p align="justify"><font size="3">Two weeks ago I received an email from eBay which caused me considerable excitement. Many of my Scottish ancestors came from the town of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coupar_Angus" target="_blank">Coupar Angus</a> in Perthshire and I have a “saved search” in “My eBay” which sends me alerts whenever the town’s name appears in an eBay listing. </font></p> <p align="justify"><font size="3">Over the years I have bought a number of interesting items in this way, including the postcard which I blogged about in <a href="http://cmgurney.blogspot.com/2011/02/postcard-from-past.html" target="_blank">Postcard from the Past</a>, which I now use as the header for my <a href="http://www.carolinegurney.com/" target="_blank">business website</a> and my <a href="https://www.facebook.com/historicalresearch" target="_blank"><font color="#be070e">Facebook page</font></a>. </font></p> <p align="justify"><font size="3"></font>&nbsp;</p> <p align="justify"><a href="http://lh4.ggpht.com/-UEhXdT4Sy_U/UIyVOz0sq4I/AAAAAAAACXg/DY9V_XdrBu0/s1600-h/Coupar%252520Angus%2525201917%25255B8%25255D.jpg"><img style="background-image: none; border-right-width: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: block; float: none; border-top-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; margin-left: auto; border-left-width: 0px; margin-right: auto; padding-top: 0px" title="Coupar Angus 1917" border="0" alt="Coupar Angus 1917" src="http://lh4.ggpht.com/-InLcGKJBpN8/UIyVQJwb0HI/AAAAAAAACXo/llwQzm1DZo8/Coupar%252520Angus%2525201917_thumb%25255B5%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="519" height="358"></a></p> <p align="justify"><font size="3"></font>&nbsp;</p> <p align="justify"><font size="3">But the latest email from eBay led me to a treasure I had never expected to find – a bill, dated 22 November 1820, submitted by my 3x great grandfather, Dr John Lowe of Coupar Angus, for medical services to the family of George Kinloch of Kinloch, near Meigle, Perthshire. I’m happy to say that I won the eBay auction and my “new” family heirloom arrived this week.</font></p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p><a href="http://lh3.ggpht.com/-3ifhRNIz_E8/UIyVRD4y3DI/AAAAAAAACXs/eFMYExacMRM/s1600-h/1820%252520bill%2525202%252520cropped%25255B10%25255D.jpg"><img style="background-image: none; border-right-width: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: block; float: none; border-top-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; margin-left: auto; border-left-width: 0px; margin-right: auto; padding-top: 0px" title="1820 medical bill cover" border="0" alt="1820 medical bill cover" src="http://lh6.ggpht.com/-TG8rlrsJT9E/UIyVSK4J7KI/AAAAAAAACX0/r4WXNiPnCAQ/1820%252520bill%2525202%252520cropped_thumb%25255B6%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="519" height="284"></a></p> <p align="justify"><font size="3"></font>&nbsp;</p> <p align="justify"><font size="3">The bill was addressed not to George Kinloch himself but to his brother in law, a writer (solicitor) called John Smyth of Balharry (who was probably also a cousin of Dr Lowe’s wife). And this is where the politics come in.</font></p> <p align="justify"><font size="3">George Kinloch was born in 1775, the son of a poor half-pay Captain who unexpectedly inherited money from a brother in the Jamaican sugar trade. Both George’s parents died before he was eight years old and his sickly elder brother when George was 13. At the age of 21, George therefore took possession of the ancestral estate of Kinloch, situated on the banks of the River Isla in the beautiful Vale of Strathmore. That same year he married his first cousin once removed, Helen Smyth, the daughter of John Smyth, whose estate of Balharry lay directly across the river from Kinloch. </font></p> <p align="justify"><font size="3">George and Helen lived quietly on their estate, raising their two sons and six daughters, born between 1797 and 1805. George sat as a Justice of the Peace, together with his close neighbour Charles Hay of Balendoch, my own 4x great uncle. In 1797, at the height of the fear of Napoleonic invasion, George was appointed to command the Coupar Angus volunteer militia, with Charles Hay and my 4x great grandfather, David Clark, as his subalterns.</font></p> <p align="justify"><font size="3"></font>&nbsp;</p> <p align="justify"><a href="http://lh4.ggpht.com/-idbATOmCi54/UIyVTnG17qI/AAAAAAAACYA/sYgkp1SmPa8/s1600-h/George%252520Kinloch%25255B4%25255D.png"><img style="background-image: none; border-right-width: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: block; float: none; border-top-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; margin-left: auto; border-left-width: 0px; margin-right: auto; padding-top: 0px" title="George Kinloch" border="0" alt="George Kinloch" src="http://lh5.ggpht.com/-u6mkXDjWag8/UIyVVMdsrbI/AAAAAAAACYE/3C6RFomnx8o/George%252520Kinloch_thumb%25255B2%25255D.png?imgmax=800" width="286" height="327"></a></p> <p align="justify"><font size="3"></font>&nbsp;</p> <p align="justify"><font size="3">Despite these conventional roles as a member of the landed gentry, George Kinloch held liberal political views, was friends with the free thinking editor of the <em>Dundee Advertiser</em> and a correspondent of William Cobbett. In 1808 George resigned his commission with the Coupar Angus volunteers because he was opposed to the maintenance of a standing army. In 1812 he wrote an anonymous letter to the Aberdeen Chronicle attacking the Peninsular War because, “instead of fighting in the cause of the Spanish people, we have been fighting for a worthless King, an insolent nobility and a useless clergy”. He also supported the American cause in the War of 1812.</font></p> <p align="justify"><font size="3">Following the defeat of Napoleon, George turned his energies to the reform of the franchise and the abolition of the income tax imposed during the Wars, which was depressing trade and employment. He attended radical dinners in Dundee and became known as a political orator. He drew attention to the enormous size of the National Debt, inveighed against excessive taxation and said, “I recommend retrenchment, cut off sinecures and diminish the salaries of Government Officers” – a strikingly up-to-date political platform to modern ears!</font></p> <p align="justify"><font size="3">Radical agitation came to a head with t</font><font size="3">he Peterloo Massacre in August 1819, when 15 people were killed and hundreds injured after soldiers charged a large but peaceful crowd which had gathered in Manchester to demand reform of the franchise. Protest meetings were organised all over the country and George Kinloch was invited to address the meeting in Dundee in November of that year. In his speech he described the government as “a contemptible Ministry” and asserted that “the House of Commons does not represent the people of these Kingdoms”. He called for </font><font size="3">annual parliaments and universal (male) suffrage. He said that, “We want no Revolution; on the contrary we want Reform to prevent a revolution” but, referring to the Peterloo Massacre, he also said that, “the time is near when we must either bow our necks to a military despotism, or be prepared to rise like men in defence of our liberties”. He also accused the Home Secretary of treason.</font></p> <p align="justify"><font size="3">The speech was reported in full in the <em>Dundee Advertiser</em> and drawn to the attention of the authorities in London who, terrified of revolution, were engaged in a full scale crackdown on those who supported reform. Two weeks after the speech, George Kinloch was arrested on a charge of sedition. Bailed to stand trial in Edinburgh, he learned that the authorities intended to make an example of him by passing a sentence of transportation for life to Australia. He bought a large wig and, assuming the name of Smith, fled via Newcastle, London and Dover to Paris, where he arrived on Christmas Eve. </font></p> <p align="justify"><font size="3">Before leaving Edinburgh, George had signed a legal document putting all his property into a trust, with his brother in law, John Smyth of Balharry, as one of the trustees. This was necessary because, when George failed to appear at his trial, he was declared an outlaw and all his assets became forfeit to the state. Using the trust, John Smyth was able to keep the Kinloch estate in the hands of the family and provide an income for George and his dependents.</font></p> <p align="justify"><font size="3">George Kinloch remained in exile in France from 1820 to 1822. His wife and daughters joined him at the end of April 1820, after which John Smyth was asked to sell all their furniture and advertise for a tenant for the house. It must have been abundantly clear to Dr Lowe that his services to the Kinloch family were at an end and unlikely to resume in the near future. On 22 November 1820 he submitted his bill, which John Smyth settled the next day:</font></p> <p align="justify">&nbsp;</p> <p align="justify"><font size="3"><a href="http://lh3.ggpht.com/-HVzdKRDWqiA/UIyVWKOiZdI/AAAAAAAACYM/Vd8RHudr7Us/s1600-h/1820%252520bill%2525201%252520cropped%25255B7%25255D.jpg"><img style="background-image: none; border-right-width: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: block; float: none; border-top-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; margin-left: auto; border-left-width: 0px; margin-right: auto; padding-top: 0px" title="1820 medical billcovering letter" border="0" alt="1820 medical bill covering letter" src="http://lh4.ggpht.com/-qFBXLBYE5sE/UIyVXaaKffI/AAAAAAAACYU/XivI38RPn-k/1820%252520bill%2525201%252520cropped_thumb%25255B5%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="632" height="341"></a></font></p> <blockquote> <p align="right"><font size="3"><em></em></font>&nbsp;</p> <p align="right"><font size="3"><em>Coupar Angus Novr 22 1820</em></font></p> <p align="justify"><font size="3"><em>Sir,</em></font></p> <p align="justify"><font size="3"><em>I take the liberty of inclosing you a small acct. of Mr Kinloch’s which you may settle at any time most convenient. I am</em></font></p> <p align="justify"><font size="3"><em>Sir</em></font></p> <p align="justify"><font size="3"><em>Your most obed. Servt</em></font></p> <p align="justify"><font size="3"><em>John Lowe</em></font></p></blockquote> <p align="justify"><font size="3"></font>&nbsp;</p> <p align="justify"><font size="3">George’s wife and daughters returned to Scotland in May 1822. Helen hoped to bring pressure on the government to pardon George and one of their daughters – Eliza – was seriously ill with tuberculosis. Having received hints that a pardon might be imminent, George jumped the gun and himself returned secretly to England at the end of October 1822. The first news he received was of Eliza’s death in Scotland a few days earlier. After lying low in London until the New Year, with still no pardon in sight, George took an even bigger risk and returned to Scotland in February 1823. He remained hidden at Kinloch until his pardon finally arrived on 25 May.</font></p> <p align="justify"><font size="3">George set about restoring his estate and took no active part in politics for some years. With the coming of Reform in 1832, views which had once been dangerously radical became mainstream and George Kinloch was feted as a hero of the movement. He stood for the new Dundee constituency in the first election after the passage of the Act and was duly returned as the city’s first MP.</font></p> <p align="justify"><font size="3">In his own words:</font></p> <blockquote> <p align="justify"><font size="3"><em>“On the 24th December 1819 I was proclaimed at the Cross of Edinburgh a rebel and an outlaw … On the same day of December 1832 I was, by the same Sheriff L’Amy, proclaimed the chosen representative of the people of Dundee.”</em>&nbsp;</font></p></blockquote> <p align="justify"><font size="3">Sadly, George Kinloch did not represent Dundee for long. Having caught a chill in the old, draughty House of Commons, he developed complications and died in his lodgings in Parliament Street, London, on 28 March 1833. In 1872 a statue of George Kinloch was erected by public subscription in Dundee, “to commemorate a signal triumph of political justice”.</font></p> <p align="justify"><font size="3"></font>&nbsp;</p> <p align="justify"><a href="http://lh4.ggpht.com/-Kdj3jtLFdsk/UIyVYtMBfUI/AAAAAAAACYg/oMwWJ0g2LQk/s1600-h/George%252520Kinloch%252520statue%252520Dundee%25255B4%25255D.png"><img style="background-image: none; border-right-width: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: block; float: none; border-top-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; margin-left: auto; border-left-width: 0px; margin-right: auto; padding-top: 0px" title="George Kinloch statue Dundee" border="0" alt="George Kinloch statue Dundee" src="http://lh6.ggpht.com/-MFFXy-P_3go/UIyVZ0KSTkI/AAAAAAAACYo/uH7twEAUmz8/George%252520Kinloch%252520statue%252520Dundee_thumb%25255B2%25255D.png?imgmax=800" width="290" height="400"></a></p> <p><font size="3"></font>&nbsp;</p> <p><font size="3">If you would like to learn more about George Kinloch, I thoroughly recommend Charles Tennant’s book, “<em>The Radical Laird</em>”, published by The Roundwood Press, Kineton, 1970.</font></p> <p><font size="3">You can read the second part of this blog post <a title="Politics and Pills &ndash; an 1820 Medical Bill: Part 2" href="http://cmgurney.blogspot.com/2012/10/politics-and-pills-1820-medical-bill_29.html" target="_blank">here</a>.</font></p> http://cmgurney.blogspot.com/2012/10/politics-and-pills-1820-medical-bill.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Caroline Gurney)1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-612731037367610064.post-370646037605512835Thu, 19 Jul 2012 21:25:00 +00002012-07-19T23:39:33.853+01:00BlogsFriends and MentorsThe 6 People You Need in Your Genealogy Corner<p align="justify"><font size="3"></font>&nbsp;</p> <p align="justify"><font size="3"><a href="http://lh3.ggpht.com/-V7AcUGAEBug/UAh7XBcGI3I/AAAAAAAACWY/4dUNBl7YIjE/s1600-h/IMAGE0005%25255B5%25255D.jpg"><img style="background-image: none; border-right-width: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: block; float: none; border-top-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; margin-left: auto; border-left-width: 0px; margin-right: auto; padding-top: 0px" title="IMAGE0005" border="0" alt="IMAGE0005" src="http://lh3.ggpht.com/-XFA64Zw9p4w/UAh7YENmJ7I/AAAAAAAACWg/AR3koh1CJW0/IMAGE0005_thumb%25255B2%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="324" height="212"></a></font></p> <p align="justify"><font size="3"></font>&nbsp;</p> <p align="justify"><font size="3"></p>This afternoon, <a href="http://rootsandrambles.blogspot.co.uk/p/about-me.html" target="_blank">Marian Pierre-Louis</a> shared this </font><a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/jessicahagy/2012/07/17/the-6-people-you-need-in-your-corner/" target="_blank"><font size="3">article</font></a><font size="3"> from Forbes on Facebook. Reading the article I immediately recognised that these six “people” are variants of the </font><a href="http://www.belbin.com/rte.asp?id=8" target="_blank"><font size="3">Belbin team roles</font></a><font size="3"> which I used when training senior managers at the <a href="http://www.carolinegurney.com/about.html" target="_blank">Civil Service College</a>. </font> <p align="justify"><font size="3">The descriptions also put me in mind of some leading lights in genealogy. We may not know them personally (though I am privileged to count some of these people amongst my friends) but, because of their generosity in sharing their expertise with the wider genealogy community, we can all have them on our “team”. </font></p> <p align="justify"><font size="3">Here are my picks for the 6 key genealogy players in my life:</font></p> <p><strong><font size="3">The Instigator: </font></strong><font size="3"><em>Someone who pushes you, who makes you think. Who motivates you to get up and go, and try, and make things happen. You want to keep this person energized, and enthusiastic. This is the voice of inspiration.</em></font> <p align="justify"><font size="3">This is <a href="http://about.me/tmacentee" target="_blank">Thomas Macentee</a>, genealogy ninja, of <a href="http://www.geneabloggers.com/" target="_blank">Geneabloggers</a>, <a href="http://hidefgen.com/" target="_blank">High Definition Genealogy</a>, <a href="http://info.flip-pal.com/genealogy-blog/?Author=Thomas%20MacEntee" target="_blank">Flip-Pal</a>, <a href="http://www.wikitree.com/wiki/MacEntee-1" target="_blank">Wikitree</a> and so much else it makes me breathless. Thomas is constantly pushing at the boundaries between genealogy and technology, innovating, inspiring and encouraging the rest of us to get involved. Thomas is the living embodiment of energy and enthusiasm, all wrapped up in one larger than life personality, with the greatest sense of humour in the genealogy universe. Thomas inspired me to create this blog and my websites. Thomas also showed me how to do it. Every webinar with Thomas is a motivation to “get up and go, and try, and make things happen”. If you haven’t yet caught his enthusiasm and sheer zest for life, check out his back catalogue at Legacy Family Tree <a href="http://www.legacyfamilytree.com/webinars.asp" target="_blank">webinars</a>.</font> <p align="justify"><strong><font size="3">The Cheerleader: </font></strong><font size="3"><em>This person is a huge fan, a strong supporter, and a rabid evangelist for you and your work. Work to make this person rewarded, to keep them engaged. This is the voice of motivation.</em></font> <p align="justify"><font size="3">This is you, Dear Reader! It’s the 23 people who have connected to this blog via Google Friend Connect, the 20 via Networked Blogs and the 40 who have liked my <a href="https://www.facebook.com/historicalresearch" target="_blank">Facebook page</a>. It’s everyone who has ever left a kind comment on one of my websites or sent me a supportive email. It’s your uncritical support and enthusiasm for my work which keeps me researching, blogging and sharing, even when my own family recoil in horror at the very mention of the word genealogy. You are the unsung heroes and heroines who make the worldwide genealogy community such a supportive and nurturing place.</font> <p><strong><font size="3">The Doubter: </font></strong><font size="3"><em>This is the devil’s advocate, who asks the hard questions and sees problems before they arise. You need this person’s perspective. They are looking out for you, and want you to be as safe as you are successful. This is the voice of reason.</em></font> <p align="justify"><font size="3">This is <a href="http://geniaus.weebly.com/about-geniaus.html" target="_blank">Elizabeth Shown Mills</a>. When you find a possible ancestor and are about to enter your findings in your family history software, it is Elizabeth’s voice you hear, urging caution and restraint. She reminds you of the genealogical proof standard, the nature of a reasonably exhaustive search and the difference between sources, information, evidence and proof. Like the wisest mother, she does not do it to spoil your fun but to keep you from getting hurt. And she does it all with exquisite Southern grace and courtesy.</font> <p><font size="3"><strong>The Taskmaster: </strong><em>This is the loud and belligerent voice that demands you gets things done. This person is the steward of momentum, making sure deadlines are met and goals are reached. This is the voice of progress.</em></font> <p align="justify"><font size="3">I started by having difficulty with this one. The loud and belligerent voices in the genealogy community were the ones I blocked long ago on mailing lists and unfriended on Facebook. And then I realised that it’s <a href="http://www.carolinegurney.com/about.html" target="_blank">me</a>! My harshest critic and the one who lashes me into action is myself. Apart from my professional clients, I have few deadlines but I nonetheless impose them on myself. I set high standards for my own genealogical development and I am a perfectionist when it comes to revising my writing and tweaking my websites. I’m the despair of my husband, whose mantra is “Thursday not perfect”, but I will sit up late on Wednesday night to ensure I meet both goals. </font> <p align="justify"><font size="3"><strong>The Connector: </strong><em>This person can help you find new avenues and new allies. This person breaks through roadblocks to finds ways to make magic happen. You need this person to reach people and places you can’t. This is the voice of cooperation and community.</em></font> <p align="justify"><font size="3">I actually have two candidates for this role - <font size="3"><a href="http://www.accessible-archives.com/2012/05/dick-eastman-stopped-by/" target="_blank">Dick Eastman</a></font><font size="3"></font><font size="3"> of </font><a href="http://blog.eogn.com/" target="_blank"><font size="3">EOGN</font></a> and </font><a href="http://pinterest.com/cyndihow/?d" target="_blank"><font size="3">Cyndi Ingle Howells</font></a><font size="3"> of </font><a href="http://www.cyndislist.com/" target="_blank"><font size="3">Cyndi’s List</font></a><font size="3">. Dick started a genealogy bulletin board forum on Compuserve in the mid 1980s. He launched his EOGN newsletter in 1996 with 100 subscribers. Today he has over 60,000. That same year, Cyndi first published her famous list online, with 1,025 links. Today it has over 319,000. Through their efforts, genealogists worldwide have been introduced to new sources, software, societies and social media. Both provide a fantastic service to the worldwide genealogy community for which I doubt either will see much reward in this world. We owe them both an enormous debt of gratitude. </font> <p><font size="3"><strong>The Example: </strong><em>This is your mentor, your hero, your North Star. This is the person who you seek to emulate. This is your guiding entity, someone whose presence acts as a constant reminder that you, too, can do amazing things. You want to make this person proud. This is the voice of true authority.</em></font> <p align="justify"><font size="3">This is <a href="http://www.megansmolenyak.com/index.html" target="_blank">Megan Smolenyak Smolenyak</a>, Megan is the person who made genealogy cool. Megan gets to meet Presidents, appear on TV and rendezvous with FBI agents in parking lots. Megan didn’t need to make up a distinctive name for herself like Madonna or Lady Gaga, she just married well. She is also extremely smart – she has two Masters degrees and has written six books. Oh, and did I say that she regularly gives her money away in grants to help fellow genealogists? To cap it all she’s pretty and a very nice person. </font> <p align="justify"><font size="3">It’s interesting that, although I am a Brit, all my choices are Americans. There is a reason but that’s a subject for another day.</font> <p align="justify"><font size="3">I’d love to know who you would pick for these 6 roles in your genealogy life. Do let me know in the comments.</font> http://cmgurney.blogspot.com/2012/07/the-6-people-you-need-in-your-genealogy.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Caroline Gurney)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-612731037367610064.post-8987721768303705917Sun, 20 Nov 2011 00:24:00 +00002011-11-20T00:26:28.238+00:00BlogsWhen I was one, I had just begun ...<p align="justify">So said <a title="Christopher Robin" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Robin" target="_blank">Christopher Robin</a> in <em><a title="Now We Are Six" href="http://www.scrapbook.com/poems/doc/13273/8.html" target="_blank">Now We Are Six</a> - </em>and the same is true of this blog, which is <a title="Welcome" href="http://cmgurney.blogspot.com/2010/11/welcome.html" target="_blank">one year old</a> today. This first year has raced by and I feel I have only made a small start to all the things I want to write about and accomplish. </p> <p align="justify">&nbsp;</p> <p align="justify"><a href="http://lh3.ggpht.com/-JJt8KyJFIwk/TshIscthTaI/AAAAAAAACEo/WCktokv4xlk/s1600-h/Overview%252520stats%25255B4%25255D.png"><img style="margin: 0px auto; display: block; float: none" title="Overview stats" alt="Overview stats" src="http://lh4.ggpht.com/-LtEmHYzdSU4/TshItNKHH0I/AAAAAAAACEw/rj9NySN8mK8/Overview%252520stats_thumb%25255B2%25255D.png?imgmax=800" width="578" height="432"></a></p> <p align="justify">&nbsp;</p> <p align="justify">Looking at my blog statistics, I have picked out some facts, figures and highlights:</p> <ul> <li> <div align="justify">I've written 65 posts - an average of one every 5 or 6 days.</div></li> <li> <div align="justify">There have been 9,386 total page views - an average of about 180 per week</div></li> <li> <div align="justify">By far the most popular post has been <a title="Scanning Saturday - My new Flip-Pal" href="http://cmgurney.blogspot.com/2011/01/scanning-saturday-my-new-flip-pal.html" target="_blank">Scanning Saturday - My new Flip-Pal</a>. </div></li> <li> <div align="justify">The least popular was <a title="Wordless Wednesday: Beards and Longevity" href="http://cmgurney.blogspot.com/2010/11/wordless-wednesday-beards-and-longevity.html" target="_blank">Wordless Wednesday: Beards and Longevity</a>.</div></li> <li> <div align="justify">My <a title="Research Toolbox" href="http://cmgurney.blogspot.com/p/research-toolbox.html" target="_blank">Research Toolbox</a> and <a title="Surnames" href="http://cmgurney.blogspot.com/p/surnames.html" target="_blank">Surnames</a> page also get a large number of hits.</div></li> <li> <div align="justify">The month with the highest readership was October 2011, thanks to my <a title="Lost in London" href="http://cmgurney.blogspot.com/2011/10/lost-in-london-1-why-is-it-such-problem.html" target="_blank">Lost in London</a> series of posts.</div></li> <li> <div align="justify">I have most readers in the USA and UK - just over 3,000 page views in each case. More surprisingly, I also seem to have regular readers in Russia and Slovenia.</div></li> <li> <div align="justify">My readers are a mainstream, even conservative, bunch when it comes to technology - 84% use Windows and 50% use Internet Explorer. Less than 4% access my blog from a mobile device (smartphone or tablet).</div></li> <li> <div align="justify">The main traffic sources for my blog are Google, Facebook, <a title="EOGN" href="http://blog.eogn.com/" target="_blank">EOGN</a>, <a title="Genea-Musings" href="http://www.geneamusings.com/" target="_blank">Genea-Musings</a> and my own website, <a title="Caro's Family" href="http://www.carosfamily.com/" target="_blank">Caro's Family</a>.</div></li> <div align="justify">&nbsp;</div></ul> <p><a href="http://lh4.ggpht.com/-zmbCYlgDeY4/TshIt9tkKbI/AAAAAAAACE4/0eNc665ypcY/s1600-h/Audience%252520stats%25255B2%25255D.png"><img style="background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; margin: 0px auto; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: block; float: none; border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px" title="Audience stats" border="0" alt="Audience stats" src="http://lh6.ggpht.com/-P8J8WJTMHN8/TshIvK5BG2I/AAAAAAAACFA/10ueD6llORM/Audience%252520stats_thumb.png?imgmax=800" width="550" height="480"></a></p> <ul> <div align="justify">&nbsp;</div></ul> <p align="justify">I'm very grateful to all of you who have read my offerings over the past year, and especially to those who have taken the time to comment. I hope you will stick with me as this blog moves into the terrible twos!</p> http://cmgurney.blogspot.com/2011/11/so-said-christopher-robin-in-now-we-are.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Caroline Gurney)13tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-612731037367610064.post-5040303280968026762Wed, 09 Nov 2011 17:07:00 +00002011-11-09T17:15:08.660+00:00NamesRoyaltyWe are a grandmother: 1 - the name Edith<p align="justify">Back in 1989 Margaret Thatcher got a lot of flak for announcing, "We are a grandmother". People thought she was using the "royal we" and had delusions of grandeur. I now understand what happened. The arrival of your first grandchild produces such a combination of anxiety, fatigue and euphoria that, for some days afterwards, you are not responsible for anything you say or do. </p> <p align="justify">Starting a sentence in the plural and ending it in the singular is nothing compared to how I behaved when my own first grandchild was born last week. I was so shell-shocked that I called her by another baby's name - twice. As a peace offering to her parents, I thought I'd blog about the pretty names they have given her - Edith Anne Georgina.</p> <p align="justify">According to <a title="Nameberry - Edith" href="http://nameberry.com/babyname/Edith" target="_blank">Nameberry</a>: "Edith was a hugely popular name a hundred years ago that's being revived among stylish parents in London". Her parents, who live in London, will be pleased with that. I think it is a lovely name and it suits our new darling girl perfectly. </p> <p align="justify">Edith comes from the Old English <em>Eadgyth</em>, derived from the words <em>ead</em>, meaning 'rich, wealthy, blessed, happy', and <em>gyð</em>, meaning 'battle, combat, strife, war'. Experts are divided about what the combination of these two words actually means. Since Edith has always been a girl's name, I don't think it means "war is a blessing" or "war makes you rich", neither of which is a very feminine attitude. I think it is much more likely that the name means "warrior for what is blessed" i.e. someone who fights the good fight. That is what us girls spend our lives doing, after all, as we work hard to build our homes and families and fight like tigers to defend our cubs. </p> <p align="justify">Edith was a very popular name in Anglo Saxon times and has some rather splendid historical connections:</p> <ul> <li> <div align="justify"><a title="Edith of England" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edith_of_England" target="_blank">Edith of England</a> (910-946), was the granddaughter of King Alfred the Great and wife of Otto I, the Holy Roman Emperor. She was very popular in her adopted country and when she died, "the whole of the German nation mourned her with an intense grief". Edith is buried in Magdeburg Cathedral and her sarcophagus was found and opened in 2008. <a title="Bones confirmed as those of Saxon Princess Eadgyth" href="http://bristol.ac.uk/news/2010/7073.html" target="_blank">Tests on the remains</a> showed that they were from a high status lady, who ate fish and rode horses, and who had spent her childhood on the chalk uplands of southern England, thereby <a title="The life of an Anglo-Saxon princess" href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2010/jun/17/archaeology-forensicscience" target="_blank">confirming the identification of Edith</a>.</div></li> <div align="justify">&nbsp;</div></ul> <p><a href="http://lh5.ggpht.com/-XUl0NWfQmcc/TrqzS1c3O4I/AAAAAAAACCE/jDznMR17bsQ/s1600-h/Edith%252520of%252520England%25255B6%25255D.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto; display: block; float: none" title="Edith of England" alt="Edith of England" src="http://lh3.ggpht.com/-zPvZtuk9FLQ/TrqzTh02ztI/AAAAAAAACCI/F-JFcmG9Ex0/Edith%252520of%252520England_thumb%25255B4%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="245" height="292"></a></p> <ul> <div align="justify">&nbsp;</div> <li> <div align="justify"><a title="Edith of Wilton" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edith_of_Wilton" target="_blank">Edith of Wilton</a> (961-984), was a nun of royal birth, later a popular English saint. She was the daughter of the mis-named King Edgar the Peaceful, who carried her mother off by force from Wilton Abbey, near Salisbury. Edgar subsequently did penance for this crime by not wearing his crown for seven years. Edith became a nun but refused her father's offer to make her an abbess. She was greatly celebrated for her learning, beauty and piety and was canonised shortly after her death. St Edith's feast day is 16 September and there are 21 churches dedicated to her in England.</div></li> <div align="justify">&nbsp;</div></ul> <p><a href="http://lh4.ggpht.com/-N-CafwkSj2Q/TrqzT9yOu1I/AAAAAAAACCM/CJViloGfM_g/s1600-h/Saint%252520Edith%25255B6%25255D.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto; display: block; float: none" title="Saint Edith" alt="Saint Edith" src="http://lh3.ggpht.com/-8jHuNrnMM0M/TrqzUcKPBdI/AAAAAAAACCQ/MTzpCDqgcU8/Saint%252520Edith_thumb%25255B4%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="224" height="257"></a></p> <ul> <div align="justify">&nbsp;</div> <li> <div align="justify"><a title="Edith the Fair" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edith_Swanneck" target="_blank">Edith the Fair</a> (c1025-c1086), wrongly called Edith Swan Neck, was the common law wife of King Harold. She walked through the carnage of the battlefield at Hastings to identify Harold's body by markings on his chest known only to her, thus enabling the monks at Waltham Abbey to give him Christian burial.</div> <li> <div align="justify"><a title="Edith of Wessex" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edith_of_Wessex" target="_blank">Edith of Wessex</a> (c1025-1075), was the wife of King Edward the Confessor and sister of King Harold. She was an educated woman who spoke several languages. She was Queen of England from 1045 to 1066. In the course of that fateful year she lost four brothers at the Battles of Stamford Bridge and Hastings. She was the only member of her family to make peace with William the Conqueror and it has been suggested that Edith was responsible for commissioning the highly subversive <a title="Bayeux Tapestry" href="http://goo.gl/k9ahO" target="_blank">Bayeux Tapestry</a>. She died, childless, at Winchester and was buried beside her husband in Westminster Abbey. </div> <div align="justify">&nbsp;</div><a href="http://lh5.ggpht.com/-PYlSltW83gw/TrqzU413oTI/AAAAAAAACCU/RRRVFYsPZ9M/s1600-h/Edith%252520of%252520Wessex%25255B7%25255D.gif"><img style="margin: 0px auto; display: block; float: none" title="Edith of Wessex" alt="Edith of Wessex" src="http://lh6.ggpht.com/-siWDcReak7w/TrqzVcHGuqI/AAAAAAAACCY/XkLn0rTBWlI/Edith%252520of%252520Wessex_thumb%25255B5%25255D.gif?imgmax=800" width="254" height="286"></a></li></ul> <p>The name Edith is also associated with some inspirational ladies in more recent times:</p> <ul> <li> <div align="justify"><a title="Edith Cavell" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edith_Cavell" target="_blank">Edith Cavell</a> (1865-1915), was the heroic English nurse who helped Allied soldiers escape from occupied Belgium during World War I and who, when caught, was shot by the Germans. She famously said, "Patriotism is not enough. I must have no hatred or bitterness for anyone". Motivated by her strong Christian faith, she helped wounded soldiers from both sides of the conflict, saying, "I can't stop while there are lives to be saved". There is a monument to her memory at the bottom of St Martin's Lane in London, which has always been one of my favourite London memorials.</div></li></ul> <p><a href="http://lh4.ggpht.com/-np-2iirSv_A/TrqzWVFIgxI/AAAAAAAACCc/wrO81xhdvxI/s1600-h/Edith_Cavell%25255B5%25255D.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto; display: block; float: none" title="Edith_Cavell" alt="Edith_Cavell" src="http://lh4.ggpht.com/-AK-VsjhVeiw/TrqzWrpLcSI/AAAAAAAACCg/Ewn0UAkjvnE/Edith_Cavell_thumb%25255B3%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="233" height="263"></a></p> <ul> <div align="justify">&nbsp;</div> <li> <div align="justify"><a title="Edith Evans" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edith_Evans" target="_blank">Edith Evans</a> (1888-1976), was a British actress, created a Dame in 1946. She is most famously known for her wonderful portrayal of Lady Bracknell in <em>The Importance of Being Earnest</em>. When I played the same role in a University production, aged just 18, I relied heavily on Dame Edith's example.</div></li> <div align="justify">&nbsp;</div></ul> <p><a href="http://lh4.ggpht.com/-DE6PUnJQirE/TrqzXEsZ6dI/AAAAAAAACCs/XqcFcxOYbz8/s1600-h/Dame%252520Edith%252520Evans%252520as%252520Lady%252520Bracknell%25255B5%25255D.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto; display: block; float: none" title="Dame Edith Evans as Lady Bracknell" alt="Dame Edith Evans as Lady Bracknell" src="http://lh6.ggpht.com/-_ITnqql4uC0/TrqzXxVY9HI/AAAAAAAACCw/kKvlfB1zoac/Dame%252520Edith%252520Evans%252520as%252520Lady%252520Bracknell_thumb%25255B3%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="223" height="263"></a></p> <ul> <div align="justify">&nbsp;</div> <li> <div align="justify"><a title="Edith Piaf" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edith_Piaf" target="_blank">Edith Piaf</a> (1915-1963), was a French street singer who became a worldwide cultural icon. She was named Edith in honour of Edith Cavell. She is remembered especially for her powerful renditions of the songs <em>Milord </em>and<em> Non, je ne regrette rien.</em> These two songs, released when I was aged 5 and 6, formed a powerful musical backdrop to my own childhood. </div></li></ul> <p><a href="http://lh6.ggpht.com/-8R1IOZxzRzo/TrqzYJxLSpI/AAAAAAAACCk/DkVyv3_4Jzs/s1600-h/edith%252520piaf%25255B6%25255D.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto; display: block; float: none" title="edith piaf" alt="edith piaf" src="http://lh5.ggpht.com/-N9OqL7r1cp0/TrqzYp0IUzI/AAAAAAAACCo/tjbHbZoV-k8/edith%252520piaf_thumb%25255B4%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="240" height="321"></a></p> http://cmgurney.blogspot.com/2011/11/we-are-grandmother-1-name-edith.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Caroline Gurney)6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-612731037367610064.post-5265580901070608459Fri, 14 Oct 2011 08:39:00 +00002011-10-14T09:39:23.203+01:00ResearchThe Ancestors' Geneameme<p>Thanks to Jill Ball of <a title="Geniaus" href="http://geniaus.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">Geniaus</a> for starting this geneameme. My list is annotated as follows:</p> <ul> <li><b>Things I have already done or found</b> <li><i>Things I would like to have done or found</i> <li>Things I haven’t done or found</li></ul> <ol> <li><strong>Can name my 16 great-great-grandparents</strong> (<a title="http://goo.gl/A6rcI" href="http://goo.gl/A6rcI">http://goo.gl/A6rcI</a>) </li> <li><strong>Can name over 50 direct ancestors</strong> (214)</li> <li><em>Have photographs or portraits of my 8 great-grandparents</em> (6 so far <a title="http://goo.gl/A6rcI" href="http://goo.gl/A6rcI">http://goo.gl/A6rcI</a>) </li> <li>Have an ancestor who was married more than three times </li> <li>Have an ancestor who was a bigamist </li> <li><em>Met all four of my grandparents</em> (1 died before I was born)</li> <li><em>Met one or more of my great-grandparents</em> (all died before I was born) </li> <li><strong>Named a child after an ancestor</strong> (my daughter's second name is Laura after my grandfather, Lawrence George Buchanan Davis <a title="http://goo.gl/Nmsw1" href="http://goo.gl/Nmsw1">http://goo.gl/Nmsw1</a>) </li> <li><strong>Bear an ancestor's given name/s</strong> (My middle name is Mary. I have 15 ancestors with that name.)</li> <li><strong>Have an ancestor from Great Britain or Ireland</strong> (All except one) </li> <li>Have an ancestor from Asia</li> <li><strong>Have an ancestor from Continental Europe</strong> (Julius Wilhelm Fritz from Bahn, Pomerania, Prussia <a title="http://goo.gl/B2SUH" href="http://goo.gl/B2SUH">http://goo.gl/B2SUH</a>)</li> <li>Have an ancestor from Africa </li> <li><strong>Have an ancestor who was an agricultural labourer</strong> (6) </li> <li>Have an ancestor who had large land holdings </li> <li><strong>Have an ancestor who was a holy man - minister, priest, rabbi</strong> (2 great-grandfathers and 1 great great grandfather were clergymen)</li> <li>Have an ancestor who was a midwife </li> <li><em>Have an ancestor who was an author</em> </li> <li><strong>Have an ancestor with the surname Smith, Murphy or Jones</strong> (I have three different lines called Smith)</li> <li>Have an ancestor with the surname Wong, Kim, Suzuki or Ng </li> <li>Have an ancestor with a surname beginning with X</li> <li>Have an ancestor with a forename beginning with Z </li> <li>Have an ancestor born on 25th December</li> <li>Have an ancestor born on New Year's Day </li> <li><em>Have blue blood in your family lines </em> <li><strong>Have a parent who was born in a country different from my country of birth</strong> (My mother was born in Canada <a title="http://goo.gl/ewLZj" href="http://goo.gl/ewLZj">http://goo.gl/ewLZj</a>) <li>Have a grandparent who was born in a country different from my country of birth <li><strong>Can trace a direct family line back to the eighteenth century</strong> <li><strong>Can trace a direct family line back to the seventeenth century or earlier</strong> (1555 <a title="http://goo.gl/vJrF5" href="http://goo.gl/vJrF5">http://goo.gl/vJrF5</a>) <li><strong>Have seen copies of the signatures of some of my great-grandparents</strong> <li><strong>Have ancestors who signed their marriage certificate with an X</strong> <li><strong>Have a grandparent or earlier ancestor who went to university</strong> (theological college <a title="http://goo.gl/262WU" href="http://goo.gl/262WU">http://goo.gl/262WU</a>) <li><strong>Have an ancestor who was convicted of a criminal offence</strong> (<a title="http://goo.gl/aw4Ob" href="http://goo.gl/aw4Ob">http://goo.gl/aw4Ob</a>) <li><strong>Have an ancestor who was a victim of crime</strong> (<a title="http://goo.gl/RZ7Dm" href="http://goo.gl/RZ7Dm">http://goo.gl/RZ7Dm</a>) <li><strong>Have shared an ancestor's story online or in a magazine</strong> (<a href="http://cmgurney.blogspot.com">http://cmgurney.blogspot.com</a>) <li><strong>Have published a family history online or in print</strong> (<a href="http://www.carosfamily.com">http://www.carosfamily.com</a>) <li><strong>Have visited an ancestor's home from the 19th or earlier centuries</strong> <li><em>Still have an ancestor's home from the 19th or earlier centuries in the family</em> <li><strong>Have a&nbsp; family bible from the 19th Century</strong> <li><em>Have a pre-19th century family bible</em></li></ol> http://cmgurney.blogspot.com/2011/10/ancestors-geneameme.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Caroline Gurney)4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-612731037367610064.post-6780595298324626477Sun, 09 Oct 2011 00:04:00 +00002011-10-09T01:11:28.690+01:00Family Tree MakerSNGFSoftwareTNGSNGF: Genealogy Database Statistics<p align="justify">&nbsp;</p> <p align="justify">Tonight's Saturday Night Genealogy Fun challenge from <a title="Randy Seaver" href="http://www.geneamusings.com/2011/10/saturday-night-genealogy-fun-your.html" target="_blank">Randy Seaver</a> is:</p> <p align="justify">1)&nbsp; If you have your family tree research in a Genealogy Management Program (GMP), whether a computer software program or an online family tree, figure out how to find how many persons, places, sources, etc. are in your database.</p> <p align="justify">2)&nbsp; Tell us which GMP you use, and how many persons, places, sources, etc. are in your database(s) today.</p> <p align="justify">&nbsp;</p> <p align="justify"><strong><font size="3">Family Tree Maker</font></strong></p> <p align="justify">I use <a title="Family Tree Maker 2012" href="http://www.familytreemaker.com/" target="_blank">Family Tree Maker 2012</a> (FTM) for my genealogy research. I went to <em>Plan &gt; Current Tree &gt; More</em> to find my file statistics.</p> <p align="justify">&nbsp;</p> <p align="justify"><a href="http://lh4.ggpht.com/-oMdQbQfYA4s/TpDk8AB7HTI/AAAAAAAAB7Q/ClUTBjkZGHU/s1600-h/FTM%252520stats%25255B4%25255D.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto; display: block; float: none" title="FTM stats" alt="FTM stats" src="http://lh5.ggpht.com/-j0K5dtBHoPQ/TpDk81K1MOI/AAAAAAAAB7U/Xu0nunRWPDg/FTM%252520stats_thumb%25255B2%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="531" height="517"></a></p> <p align="justify"></p> <p align="justify">&nbsp;</p> <p align="justify">This shows me that in my database I have:</p> <ul> <li> <div align="justify">5,096 people</div></li> <li> <div align="justify">1,374 marriages</div></li> <li> <div align="justify">14 generations</div></li> <li> <div align="justify">1,015 surnames</div></li> <li> <div align="justify">1,911 places</div></li> <li> <div align="justify">63 sources</div></li> <li> <div align="justify">425 media</div></li></ul> <ul> <li> <div align="justify">average lifespan 57.3 years</div></li> <li> <div align="justify">earliest birth date before 1555</div></li> <li> <div align="justify">most recent birth date 11 March 2011</div></li></ul> <p>My daughter is due to have her first baby two weeks today, so that last statistic will soon change. </p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p><strong><font size="3">The Next Generation</font></strong></p> <p align="justify">I use <a title="The Next Generation of Genealogy Sitebuilding" href="http://lythgoes.net/genealogy/software.php" target="_blank">The Next Generation of Genealogy Sitebuilding</a> (TNG) to publish my family history online. TNG also produces database statistics. These are slightly different from FTM because I haven't synced the two programs for a couple of days.</p> <p align="justify">&nbsp;</p> <p align="justify"><a href="http://lh4.ggpht.com/--5Q4n3lzwnk/TpDk9u7NtNI/AAAAAAAAB7Y/-petwW-epnE/s1600-h/TNG%252520stats%25255B15%25255D.png"><img style="margin: 0px auto; display: block; float: none" title="TNG stats" alt="TNG stats" src="http://lh6.ggpht.com/-7T3j7g8ZNpE/TpDk-zGOUSI/AAAAAAAAB7c/hXFx9ndnQ9Q/TNG%252520stats_thumb%25255B9%25255D.png?imgmax=800" width="574" height="1008"></a></p> <p align="justify">&nbsp;</p> <p align="justify">The TNG statistics provide me with the additional information that in my database I have:</p> <ul> <li> <div align="justify">2,576 males (50.57%)</div></li> <li> <div align="justify">2,499 females (49.06%)</div></li> <li> <div align="justify">19 unknown gender (0.37%)</div></li> <li> <div align="justify">total living 582</div></li> <li> <div align="justify">total families 1,536</div></li> <li> <div align="justify">average lifespan 60 years 88 days</div></li> <li> <div align="justify">longest lived person 106 years</div></li></ul> <p align="justify">The large discrepancy in the average lifespan between FTM and TNG is surprising and I must investigate that further.</p> http://cmgurney.blogspot.com/2011/10/sngf-genealogy-database-statistics.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Caroline Gurney)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-612731037367610064.post-3011137488770370364Sat, 08 Oct 2011 19:35:00 +00002011-10-08T21:31:01.566+01:00Ancestral FacesAncestral PlacesLondonResearchLost in London - 4: Tracing an ordinary London family<p>&nbsp;</p> <p align="justify"><a href="http://lh3.ggpht.com/-jh7wMuMcpao/TpCl5sfsegI/AAAAAAAAB6E/xZOdvuEGKc4/s1600-h/LOL-2%25255B2%25255D.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto; display: block; float: none" title="" alt="" src="http://lh3.ggpht.com/-GqwlcCXj32M/TpCl6DS202I/AAAAAAAAB6I/XluFudaZ8I8/LOL-2_thumb%25255B1%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="594" height="480"></a></p> <p align="justify">&nbsp;</p> <p align="justify">To illustrate how much can be found about ordinary London families, I am including the following examples relating to my own Bluett and Fritz ancestors. They were poor Irish and German immigrants but the documents I have uncovered show that they actually lived extraordinary lives. The photographs of Mary Ann Bluett and Julius Fritz included in the family tree, above, came to me from hitherto unknown, distant cousins. We only made contact because my tree was online.&nbsp; </p> <p align="justify">&nbsp;</p> <p><a href="http://lh5.ggpht.com/-y7RfiQUh-dg/TpCl63TNMJI/AAAAAAAAB6M/lEJJ2MelmY0/s1600-h/LOL-3a%25255B2%25255D.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto; display: block; float: none" title="LOL 3a" alt="LOL 3a" src="http://lh4.ggpht.com/-EaOwX5rjpqY/TpCl7Xb6OGI/AAAAAAAAB6Q/0EtxZj7UKZE/LOL-3a_thumb%25255B1%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="596" height="341"></a> <p>&nbsp; <p align="justify">This article is from the Times of 15 May 1846. There was a family tradition that <a title="Thomas Bluett" href="http://cmgurney.blogspot.com/2011/02/waitangi-day-thomas-bluett-wellington.html" target="_blank">Thomas Bluett</a> had been shot in London but the details were completely wrong. As a result, I researched without success for 18 years. Yet I found Thomas easily as soon as the Times Digital Archive came online. That one newspaper published nine separate articles about the shooting, arrest, death, autopsy, inquest and trial. There was also a classic thundering Times leader following the acquittal of the perpetrator, John Graham. Many other national and regional papers also published articles. From all this material I discovered that Thomas had been born in Ireland, whereas I had been searching for him in Devon &amp; Cornwall for years! <p align="justify">&nbsp; <p><a href="http://lh5.ggpht.com/-rYl92hXxLcA/TpCl7z9VenI/AAAAAAAAB6U/pb6JrWaN0Ow/s1600-h/LOL-4a%25255B1%25255D.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto; display: block; float: none" title="LOL 4a" alt="LOL 4a" src="http://lh3.ggpht.com/-rsTVXbvZZJw/TpCl8gZsoUI/AAAAAAAAB6Y/VVzdPcNMupI/LOL-4a_thumb.jpg?imgmax=800" width="540" height="310"></a> <p align="justify">&nbsp; <p align="justify">This article is from the Times of 11 June 1846. It provides wonderful information about Mary Bluett, née Langley, and her daughter Mary Ann Bluett, later Fritz. The second half of this article refers to Mary's previous residence in Hong Kong and to her having returned home on a ship whose Captain was subsequently tried at the Old Bailey, with Mary Bluett giving evidence. Armed with these clues and in collaboration with a cousin, found via the internet, I researched an amazing story of travels on three continents, confidence tricks, abandonment, mutiny, celebrity and crime. <p align="justify">&nbsp; <p><a href="http://lh4.ggpht.com/-82j8zF08Lgo/TpCl9CYTpmI/AAAAAAAAB6c/4NLf0U9UXS8/s1600-h/LOL-54.jpg"><img style="background-image: none; border-right-width: 0px; margin: 0px auto; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: block; float: none; border-top-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px; padding-top: 0px" title="LOL 5" border="0" alt="LOL 5" src="http://lh6.ggpht.com/-0LnI70TFI3M/TpCl9mzzt-I/AAAAAAAAB6g/vkywNyQiWA0/LOL-5_thumb2.jpg?imgmax=800" width="557" height="320"></a> <p align="justify">&nbsp; <p align="justify">Successive censuses showed that Julius Fritz had been born in Prussia but became a British Subject. I found his naturalisation papers in the National Archives and they gave me much valuable information about his origins, family, occupation and residence. They even gave me the name of his father in Prussia - Heinrich. <p align="justify">&nbsp; <p><a href="http://lh4.ggpht.com/-Ecy3C1sZ-1g/TpCl-EODQ_I/AAAAAAAAB6k/NLg_BHOtrjU/s1600-h/LOL-64.jpg"><img style="background-image: none; border-right-width: 0px; margin: 0px auto; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: block; float: none; border-top-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px; padding-top: 0px" title="LOL 6" border="0" alt="LOL 6" src="http://lh3.ggpht.com/-jgN3pSY14Qk/TpCl-mq8AfI/AAAAAAAAB6o/oLHVB6Zx16Y/LOL-6_thumb2.jpg?imgmax=800" width="549" height="314"></a></p> <p align="justify">&nbsp; <p align="justify">Cousins I found via the internet had a tradition that Julius was a Freeman of the City of London. I was initially sceptical as there was no such story in my branch of the family. But it turned out to be true and they were able to supply me with a copy of his application for the Freedom. This also gives the name of Julius' father - but as Ferdinand -and the information that he was dead by September 1876. <p align="justify">&nbsp; <p><a href="http://lh6.ggpht.com/-ujYrBe9_7vQ/TpCl_bII30I/AAAAAAAAB6s/M_SALiBCqtc/s1600-h/LOL-7%25255B1%25255D.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto; display: block; float: none" title="LOL 7" alt="LOL 7" src="http://lh6.ggpht.com/-43oA6NSVgpM/TpCmBrILu4I/AAAAAAAAB6w/WZEOnMDagDU/LOL-7_thumb.jpg?imgmax=800" width="552" height="307"></a> <p>&nbsp; <p align="justify">17a Fetter Lane, London was the Fritz family home and the location for Julius' tailoring business and second-hand china shop. Julius also let rooms to lodgers. It was a slum and was demolished in 1887. But it had been the home of the poet John Dryden in the 17th century and so it was sketched by several artists immediately prior to its demolition. A number of these pictures were found on the internet by a cousin, using Google. Members of the family are shown at the windows in this illustration. In another, a shop sign for J Fritz, Old China Dealer, can clearly be seen.&nbsp; <p>&nbsp; <p><a href="http://lh3.ggpht.com/-VpSLRZwOzfE/TpCmCIdWCRI/AAAAAAAAB60/f9l-pFnuMRA/s1600-h/LOL%2525208%25255B4%25255D.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto; display: block; float: none" title="LOL 8" alt="LOL 8" src="http://lh3.ggpht.com/-do4IQkP0LHg/TpCmCyGHfaI/AAAAAAAAB64/Bbkt-uzbDOY/LOL%2525208_thumb%25255B2%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="577" height="321"></a> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p align="justify">This article is from the Times of 28 May 1878. It reports an affray involving one of the lodgers at 17a Fetter Lane, Mrs Amelia Lewis, in which Mary Ann Fritz (nee Bluett) and one of her daughters got caught up. They later gave evidence in court. Ordinary people frequently appear in police reports in this way.</p> http://cmgurney.blogspot.com/2011/10/lost-in-london-4-tracing-ordinary.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Caroline Gurney)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-612731037367610064.post-3888095159543185914Sat, 08 Oct 2011 18:57:00 +00002011-10-08T23:52:07.705+01:00Ancestral PlacesLondonResearchLost in London - 3: Helpful websites<p>&nbsp;</p> <p><a href="http://lh6.ggpht.com/--PEamAi5DXI/TpCdAmjLinI/AAAAAAAAB58/61J2mJPOfwk/s1600-h/LOL-1%25255B1%25255D.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto; display: block; float: none" title="" alt="" src="http://lh4.ggpht.com/-TCEdlSvGniU/TpCdBSgG0xI/AAAAAAAAB6A/IIXTbpVuE7o/LOL-1_thumb.jpg?imgmax=800" width="598" height="456"></a></p> <p><strong></strong>&nbsp; <p align="justify"><strong><a title="Access to Archives" href="http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/a2a/advanced-search.aspx?tab=1" target="_blank">Access to Archives</a></strong>. Search by name or place across the catalogues of most London repositories including the London Metropolitan Archives, City of Westminster Archives, Corporation of London Records Office and Guildhall Library. <p align="justify"><a title="Ancestry" href="http://www.ancestry.co.uk" target="_blank"><strong>Ancestry</strong></a>. Currently their catalogue lists 30 London specific databases, including London Births and Baptisms, 1813-1906; London Marriages and Banns, 1754-1921; London Deaths and Burials, 1813-1980; and London Baptisms, Marriages and Burials, 1538-1812. <p align="justify"><strong><a title="Black Sheep Index" href="http://www.blacksheepindex.co.uk/" target="_blank">Black Sheep Index</a>.</strong> It's pot luck if you find anyone. I found two young ancestors who got on a train, very drunk, and objected violently to some pious fellow passengers who tried to convert them! I also found the reason for the disappearance of my great-great grandfather, Rev Frederick Davis – he fled abroad to avoid a charge of assaulting a young woman on a train. <p align="justify"><a title="British Newspapers, 1800-1900" href="http://newspapers.bl.uk/blcs/" target="_blank"><strong>British Newspapers, 1800-1900</strong></a>. 49 local and national titles. You may be able to access this collection for free using your library card. <p align="justify"><strong><a title="Charles Booth Online Archive" href="http://booth.lse.ac.uk/" target="_blank">Charles Booth Online Archive</a>.</strong> Street by street notebooks and maps, documenting social conditions in London between 1886 and 1903. <p align="justify"><a title="City of Westminster Archives Catalogue" href="http://www.calmview.eu/Westminster/CalmView/default.aspx" target="_blank"><strong>City of Westminster Archives Catalogue</strong></a>. WESTCAT contains details of the official records of the City of Westminster and the former Boroughs of Paddington and St Marylebone together with parish registers and other parish records for these areas. The collections also include records deposited by businesses, estates, schools, clubs, societies, charities, institutions and private individuals. There are also images of prints and photographs drawn from the archival and local studies collection. <p align="justify"><a title="Cyndi's List, London" href="http://www.cyndislist.com/uk/eng/counties/lnd/bmd/" target="_blank"><strong>Cyndi's List</strong></a>. Check Cyndi's pages for London and the surrounding counties for thousands of relevant links. <p align="justify"><a title="Deceased Online" href="http://www.deceasedonline.com/" target="_blank"><strong>Deceased Online</strong></a>. Digitised images of burial and cremation records from the London Boroughs of Brent, Camden, Greenwich, Havering, Islington and Merton. <p align="justify"><strong><a title="Docklands Ancestors" href="http://www.parishregister.com/" target="_blank">Docklands Ancestors</a>. </strong>Indexes to baptisms in dockland parishes, plus resources for researching Thames watermen and lightermen and other dockland ancestors. <p align="justify"><a title="Find My Past" href="http://www.findmypast.co.uk/content/other-records/london-collection.html" target="_blank"><strong>Find My Past</strong></a>. The London Collection includes the City of London Burial Index; West Middlesex Marriage Index; London Docklands Baptisms; London and West Kent Probate Indexes and participants in the 1888 Matchworkers' Strike. <p align="justify"><strong><a title="GENUKI" href="http://homepages.gold.ac.uk/genuki/LND/" target="_blank">GENUKI: London</a></strong>. Don't forget to visit the pages for Middlesex, Surrey, Kent and Essex as well. <p align="justify"><strong><a title="Google" href="http://www.google.co.uk" target="_blank">Google</a>.</strong> To find all instances of a search term on a website, use the search prefix "site" plus your search term, for example: "site:www.blacksheepindex.co.uk gurney". This is very useful for sites such as Black Sheep Ancestors which have multiple databases with no overall search engine. <p align="justify"><a title="Google Books" href="http://books.google.co.uk" target="_blank"><strong>Google Books</strong></a>. Search for references to ancestral names or places inside old books. Read them online or order the book from your local library on inter-library loan. <p align="justify"><strong><a title="Historical Directories" href="http://www.historicaldirectories.org" target="_blank">Historical Directories</a></strong>. Digital images of 81 London directories from 1808 to 1919. <p align="justify"><a title="London Ancestor" href="http://www.londonancestor.com/" target="_blank"><strong>London Ancestor</strong></a><strong>. </strong>A miscellany of London links. <p align="justify"><strong><a title="London Gazette" href="http://www.london-gazette.co.uk/search" target="_blank">London Gazette</a>.</strong> Includes bankruptcies, business failures and closures. I found a direct ancestor imprisoned in Maidstone Gaol as an "insolvent debtor". <p align="justify"><a title="The London Jews Database" href="http://www.jewishgen.org/databases/uk/londweb.htm" target="_blank"><strong>London Jews Database</strong></a>. A database of names, addresses and some other information about Jews who lived in London in the first half of the nineteenth century. <p align="justify"><a title="London Lives, 1690-1800" href="http://www.londonlives.org/" target="_blank"><strong>London Lives, 1690-1800</strong></a>. A fully searchable edition of 240,000 manuscripts from eight archives and fifteen datasets, giving access to 3.35 million names. <p align="justify"><a title="London Metropolitan Archives" href="http://www.cityoflondon.gov.uk/Corporation/LGNL_Services/Leisure_and_culture/Records_and_archives/" target="_blank"><strong>London Metropolitan Archives</strong></a><strong>.</strong> Information about collections, research leaflets and catalogue search. <p align="justify"><a title="London Road Name Changes" href="http://www.rayment.info/general/road_name_changes/" target="_blank"><strong>London Road Name Changes</strong></a><strong>.</strong> Indexed lists of the road name changes made by London County Council after 1889. <p align="justify"><a title="London Roll of Honour" href="http://www.roll-of-honour.com/London/" target="_blank"><strong>London Roll of Honour</strong></a>. London war memorials and rolls of honour. <p align="justify"><strong><a title="Middlesex Marriage Index" href="http://www.angelfire.com/fl/Sumter/Middlesex.html" target="_blank">Middlesex Marriage Index</a></strong><strong>.</strong> Covers 31 parishes on the outskirts of London. <p align="justify"><a title="Old London Maps" href="http://oldlondonmaps.com/" target="_blank"><strong>Old London Maps</strong></a><strong>. </strong>Includes views of the city from the 16th to the 19th century. <p align="justify"><a title="Principal streets and places in London and its environs" href="http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=e2shAQAAMAAJ" target="_blank"><strong>Principal streets and places in London and its environs, 1856</strong></a>. Produced by the Post office, this directory gives the postal district for every street in London. <p align="justify"><strong><a title="Proceedings of the Old Bailey" href="http://www.oldbaileyonline.org/" target="_blank">Proceedings of the Old Bailey</a>. </strong>Pot luck again. This site has amazing detail about cases, with names, addresses and statements of victims, witnesses and perpetrators. <p align="justify"><a title="Society of Genealogists, London Resources" href="http://www.sog.org.uk/prc/london.shtml" target="_blank"><strong>Society of Genealogists, City of London Resources</strong></a>. Includes information on the City Livery Companies, in addition to the resource categories listed for Middlesex, below. <p align="justify"><a title="Society of Genealogists, Middlesex Resources" href="http://www.sog.org.uk/prc/middlesex.shtml" target="_blank"><strong>Society of Genealogists, Middlesex Resources</strong></a>. Includes parish registers, marriage licences, monumental inscriptions, censuses, directories, poll books, periodicals and wills. <p align="justify"><strong><a title="Times Digital Archive" href="http://www.uk-family-history.com/TheTimes.html" target="_blank">Times Digital Archive, 1785-1985</a>. </strong>Information on how to gain free access and how to search. The Times is not just a source for "top people". Many ordinary people appeared in its pages, especially in reports of court cases and "human interest" stories. <p align="justify"><a title="Topographical Dictionary of London, 1831" href="http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=tjEQAAAAYAAJ" target="_blank"><strong>Topographical Dictionary of London, 1831</strong></a>. "Containing descriptive and critical accounts of all the public and private buildings, offices, docks, squares, streets, lanes, wards, liberties, charitable, scholastic and other establishments, with lists of their officers, patrons, incumbents of livings, &amp;c. in the British metropolis".&nbsp; <p align="justify"><strong><a title="Tower Hamlets BMD" href="http://www.thbmd.co.uk/" target="_blank">Tower Hamlets BMD</a></strong><strong>. </strong>Indexes to registrations of births, marriages and deaths within the Tower Hamlets district from 1837 to date. <p align="justify"><strong><a title="Victorian London A to Z Street Index" href="http://homepage.ntlworld.com/hitch/gendocs/lon-str.html" target="_blank">Victorian London A to Z Street Index</a>. </strong></p> http://cmgurney.blogspot.com/2011/10/lost-in-london-3-helpful-websites.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Caroline Gurney)2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-612731037367610064.post-197015720352960366Sat, 08 Oct 2011 16:49:00 +00002011-10-08T21:11:20.690+01:00Ancestral PlacesLondonResearchLost in London - 2: Research strategies<p>&nbsp;</p> <p><a href="http://lh3.ggpht.com/-ONsAQvNfyRI/TpB_JzCrRXI/AAAAAAAAB50/zZ8-m61bm6Q/s1600-h/LOL-1%25255B1%25255D.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto; display: block; float: none" title="" alt="" src="http://lh3.ggpht.com/-A_JMFYGCG4k/TpB_KeiJawI/AAAAAAAAB54/af_lLqzPXKA/LOL-1_thumb.jpg?imgmax=800" width="599" height="457"></a></p> <p align="justify"><strong><font size="2"></font></strong>&nbsp;</p> <p align="justify"><strong><font size="2">General strategies</font></strong></p> <p align="justify">These are strategies applicable to all family history research:</p> <ul> <li> <div align="justify">Keep an open mind. Evaluate everything, assume nothing. What you think you know about dates, ages, relationships or places may be wrong and may be preventing you from looking in the right place.</div> <li> <div align="justify">Use all available sources. Never be content with just the readily available BMD and census information. More sources equal more pieces of the jigsaw.</div></li></ul> <ul> <li> <div align="justify">Research related lines. Siblings share parents and first cousins share their grandparents. Work backwards through them and then come forwards down the tree again. Find living relatives. Different stories, photos and documents are passed down different lines. Distant cousins may hold vital clues. They may even help you research.</div> <li> <div align="justify">Use the internet. More and more images of primary sources are online, plus incredibly helpful indexes and search engines. The internet is an amazing tool, which has revolutionised genealogy. Use it!</div> <li> <div align="justify">Share your research. This combines the last two points. Publish your research online and watch the new cousins roll up and the brick walls tumble.</div></li></ul> <p align="justify"><strong><font size="2">London strategies</font> </strong></p> <p align="justify"><strong>Learn the geography.</strong></p> <p align="justify"><em>"Mr Weller's knowledge of London was extensive and peculiar". Dickens</em></p> <p align="justify">You need to "do the knowledge” like a London cabbie.</p> <ul> <li> <div align="justify">Learn the administrative structure. London consisted of the City of London plus parts of Middlesex, Surrey, Kent and Essex. There were different boundaries for registration districts, poor law unions, Church of England parishes and electoral wards. These overlapped in confusing ways. There were also frequent changes. During the 19th century there was repeated sub-division of Church of England parishes and, in 1889, the London County Council was created.</div> <li> <div align="justify">Study 19th century growth. London was transformed by the coming of the railways in the 1830s, leading for the first time to a divide between the inner city and the suburbs. There was new building on a massive scale, with the development of Islington, Paddington, Belgravia, Holborn, Finsbury, Shoreditch, Southwark and Lambeth. </div> <li> <div align="justify">Research street name changes. Many streets disappeared as a result of new road construction such as Kingsway in central London. Many had their names changed (sometimes more than once) to remove duplications. To track the changes you need maps. Reproductions of old Ordnance Survey maps and the <a title="A to Z of Victorian London" href="http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/bookshop/details.aspx?titleId=145" target="_blank">A to Z of Victorian London</a> are particularly helpful.</div> <li> <div align="justify">Consider migration routes. Identify possible routes&nbsp; into London from your ancestors' rural places of origin. For example, the Gurney family moved from Norfolk to Bedfordshire to Hertfordshire to North London. And remember that they didn't just travel by road. You should look at the pattern of rivers and railways as well, when trying to identify where they came from or where they went.</div></li></ul> <p align="justify"><strong>Understand the society</strong></p> <p align="justify"><em>"London, that great cesspool into which all the loungers and idlers of the Empire are irresistibly drained." Conan Doyle</em></p> <p align="justify">To do this you must read, read, read. Some helpful starting points are:</p> <ul> <li> <div align="justify">Ackroyd, Peter.&nbsp; <em>London: The Biography</em> </div> <li> <div align="justify">Dickens, Charles.<em> </em>Any of his London based novels. See <em><a title="Dickensian London: A character in itself" href="http://www.csmonitor.com/2004/0128/p16s02-trgn.html" target="_blank">Dickensian London: A character in itself</a>.</em></div> <li> <div align="justify">Engels, Friedrich. <em>The Condition of the Working-Class in England in 1844.</em> </div> <li> <div align="justify">Mayhew, Henry. <em>London Labour and the London Poor.</em> </div> <li> <div align="justify">Booth, Charles. <em>Life and Labour of the People of London</em>. The London School of Economics has put Booth's poverty maps and notebooks <a title="Charles Booth Online Archive" href="http://booth.lse.ac.uk/" target="_blank">online</a>. If you are lucky, you may find a detailed description of your ancestor’s street.</div></li></ul> <p align="justify"><strong>Remember the history</strong></p> <p align="justify"><em>"If men could learn from history, what lessons it might teach us!" Coleridge</em></p> <ul> <li> <div align="justify">Your ancestors did not live in a vacuum, isolated from the great events of their day. To see the connections, superimpose a timeline of historical and/or local events on a chronological list of events in your ancestor's life. Tools to help you do this can be found in many genealogy software programs. </div> <li> <p align="justify">Are some of your male ancestors missing from the 1901 census? This baffled people when the 1901 census was first released. They had forgotten about the <a title="Boer War" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boer_war#Second_Anglo-Boer_War" target="_blank">Boer War</a>.</p> <li> <p align="justify">Did your ancestors appear in London out of nowhere in the 1840s/1850s? Remember the Irish <a title="Potato Famine" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Famine_(Ireland)" rel="Potato Famine" target="_blank">Potato Famine</a>, 1845-1852 and that Irish people did not necessarily have uniquely Irish surnames. 1848 is known as the <a title="Year of Revolution" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1848_Revolution" target="_blank">Year of Revolution</a> across Europe. Uprisings took place in France, Germany, Hungary, Italy and Poland, and their suppression was the trigger for a wave of emigration. Many ended up in London.</p></li></ul> http://cmgurney.blogspot.com/2011/10/lost-in-london-2-research-strategies.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Caroline Gurney)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-612731037367610064.post-7259195123358257260Sat, 08 Oct 2011 16:27:00 +00002011-10-08T20:47:32.621+01:00Ancestral PlacesLondonResearchLost in London - 1: Why is London such a problem?<p align="justify">Back in 2008 I gave a talk to the Family History Group of Thornbury U3A on the theme "Lost in London - Breaking down brick walls in London research". As my health no longer allows me to travel to give talks, I've decided to share my presentation on this blog. I've broken it into four parts for ease of reading. I hope you find it helpful.</p> <p align="justify">&nbsp;</p> <p align="justify"><font color="#298bd5"></font><a href="http://lh3.ggpht.com/-urzy8sZSbd4/TpB56hJ8avI/AAAAAAAAB5s/CjbtDkVIBPQ/s1600-h/LOL-15%25255B1%25255D.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto; display: block; float: none" title="LOL 1" alt="LOL 1" src="http://lh5.ggpht.com/-EgW2kKBNiHQ/TpB57A6MUSI/AAAAAAAAB5w/86G7Qw0VFFc/LOL-15_thumb.jpg?imgmax=800" width="576" height="448"></a></p> <p><strong>Why is London such a problem?</strong></p> <p><em>"Hell is a city much like London - A populous and smoky city." Shelley</em></p> <ul> <li> <div align="justify">Size. By 1800 London was already the world’s largest city, with a population of 1 million. By the 1851 census, that figure had grown to 2.5 million and was 6.7 million in 1901. </div> <li> <div align="justify">Scale. The small market town where I live, Chipping Sodbury, consists of one parish and it is possible to search the whole parish register, if necessary, for one event. But there were over 100 parishes in the square mile of the City of London alone. And some of the parishes in the wider city were truly enormous. By mid century, the population of St Marylebone was over 150,000.</div> <li> <div align="justify">Range of repositories. In addition to the major collections in the London Metropolitan Archives, Guildhall Library and Westminster Archives, there are separate record offices in most London boroughs, plus numerous specialist repositories</div> <li> <div align="justify">Range of sources. The numbers of different churches, charities, directories, newspapers, books, government reports, etc. covering London make it impossible to search everything.</div> <li> <div align="justify">Difficult research period. During the early 19th century there was a decline in the number of children baptised, especially in poor urban areas, and this was prior to the start of General Registration in 1837 and the first useful census in 1841.</div><strong></strong></li></ul> <p><strong>Why are Londoners such a problem?</strong></p> <p><em>"There are two places in the world where men can most effectively disappear—the city of London and the South Seas." Herman Melville</em></p> <ul> <li>Extreme poverty. In "The Condition of the Working Class in England", published in 1845, <a title="Friedrich Engels" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Engels" target="_blank">Friedrich Engels</a> described the abject condition of the London poor: <ul> <p align="justify"><em>On the occasion of an inquest held Nov. 14th, 1843, by Mr. Carter, coroner for Surrey, upon the body of Ann Galway, aged 45 years, the newspapers related the following particulars concerning the deceased: She had lived at No. 3 White Lion Court, Bermondsey Street, London, with her husband and a nineteen-year-old son in a little room, in which neither a bedstead nor any other furniture was to be seen. She lay dead beside her son upon a heap of feathers which were scattered over her almost naked body, there being neither sheet nor coverlet. The feathers stuck so fast over the whole body that the physician could not examine the corpse until it was cleansed, and then found it starved and scarred from the bites of vermin. Part of the floor of the room was torn up, and the hole used by the family as a privy.</em> <p align="justify"><em>On Monday, Jan. 15th, 1844, two boys were brought before the police magistrate because, being in a starving condition, they had stolen and immediately devoured a half-cooked calf's foot from a shop. The magistrate felt called upon to investigate the case further, and received the following details from the policeman: The mother of the two boys was the widow of an ex-soldier, afterwards policeman, and had had a very hard time since the death of her husband, to provide for her nine children. She lived at No. 2 Pool's Place, Quaker Court, Spitalfields, in the utmost poverty. When the policeman came to her, he found her with six of her children literally huddled together in a little back room, with no furniture but two old rush-bottomed chairs with the seats gone, a small table with two legs broken, a broken cup, and a small dish. On the hearth was scarcely a spark of fire, and in one corner lay as many old rags as would fill a woman's apron, which served the whole family as a bed. For bed clothing they had only their scanty day clothing. The poor woman told him that she had been forced to sell her bedstead the year before to buy food. Her bedding she had pawned with the victualler for food. In short, everything had gone for food. The magistrate ordered the woman a considerable provision from the poor-box.</em> </p></ul> <li> <div align="justify">Extreme mobility. Because so many were leading a hand to mouth existence, with very little money for accommodation, renting rooms by the month, week or even by the night was common. Most poor families gave a different address at the birth registration of each child. It is not uncommon for the address to change in the few weeks between birth and baptism.</div> <li> <div align="justify">Fragmented families. The Industrial Revolution led to a huge migration of population from the countryside into the towns. People lost their rural roots and the extended family structures which went with them. Family members were scattered over wide areas of the city and children no longer supported their aged parents.</div> <li> <div align="justify">Social breakdown. People were no longer well known to their neighbours, or to the authorities, as is demonstrated in the cases cited by Engels</div> <li> <div align="justify">Official anonymity. Civil registration of births, marriages and deaths was not compulsory until 1875. There was deliberate evasion of the census takers and it was easy to cover up cohabitation, adultery and illegitimacy. One of my husband's ancestors fathered two illegitimate children whilst he was an apprentice. He and his partner were able to pass themselves off as man and wife when baptising those children in a large London parish. Once his apprenticeship ended, they went several parishes away to tie the knot quietly.</div></li></ul> http://cmgurney.blogspot.com/2011/10/lost-in-london-1-why-is-it-such-problem.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Caroline Gurney)2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-612731037367610064.post-5916280217793425026Mon, 12 Sep 2011 00:43:00 +00002011-09-12T01:54:12.506+01:00ArchivesEssexFind My PastMarinersResearchScotlandTNAUK Genealogy News & Views: 12 September 2011<p><strong>Essex Ancestors Update</strong></p> <p align="justify">The planned launch of <a title="Essex Ancestors" href="http://seax.essexcc.gov.uk/displayParishContents.asp" target="_blank">Essex Ancestors</a> on 30 August has been put back to 3 October. This means that you have an extra month to view the digital images currently online for free, as explained in my <a title="UK Genealogy News &amp; Views 22 August 2011" href="http://cmgurney.blogspot.com/2011/08/uk-genealogy-news-views-22082011.html" target="_blank">previous post</a>. Don't miss this opportunity whilst it is available.</p> <p align="justify"><strong>Genhound - a little known resource</strong></p> <p align="justify">I read a lot of genealogy blogs and follow many genealogists on Twitter, Google+ and Facebook. Some sites get mentioned repeatedly but I rarely see any reference to <a title="Genhound" href="http://www.genhound.co.uk/" target="_blank">Genhound</a>. That is a pity as it is full of useful content which is growing fast. Records include parish registers, monumental inscriptions, newspapers, obituaries, wills, military records, court records, land records, biographies and much more besides. You can see a complete list of databases <a title="Genhound databases" href="http://goo.gl/QzP9I" target="_blank">here</a>. At the moment there is a little bit of everything, so it's a real lucky dip. As someone who's stuck in late 17th century Scotland, I am particularly keen on the Scottish Deeds Index, which now covers the period 1675-1696. But I've also found relatives in poll books, directories and school records. Genhound is extremely reasonably priced. You can buy 60 Credits for £3 and they have no expiry date. The average record costs just 10 credits (50p) to view. Do give their <a title="Search Genhound" href="http://www.genhound.co.uk/search.php">search engine</a> a try today and let me know how you get on.</p> <p><strong>New Crew List Records on Find My Past</strong></p> <p align="justify"><a title="Find My Past" href="http://www.findmypast.co.uk" target="_blank">Find My Past</a> have recently added records from 1881 and 1891 to their database of <a title="Crew Lists, 1861-1913" href="http://www.findmypast.co.uk/clip-crew-lists-search-start.action" target="_blank">Crew Lists, 1861-1913</a>. This database is potentially very valuable. It contains indexes to around 33,500 lists of crew members on board British merchant vessels and around 413,500 records of individual crewmen. Information available in the index includes name, age, place of birth, rank, previous ship, current ship, dates of voyage, details of the vessel, details of the owner, master and other crew members and the reference number for the original crew list at the National Archives. </p> <p align="justify">Unfortunately, the usefulness of the index is seriously undermined by the limitations of the search function and the poor quality of the indexing. It is not possible to search by the birth town, only by the birth county (usually not in the original but added by the indexers). You must select from a list of counties which covers England, Wales, two counties in Ireland - Cork and Dublin, Guernsey, Jersey, the Isle of Man and Overseas. The database contains a large number of crew members who were born in one of the other Irish counties, or in Scotland, but it is impossible to search for them by birth county. </p> <p align="justify">Birth towns have also been incorrectly allocated to counties. Whilst ploughing through 28 pages of Andersons to find my Scottish relatives, I came across Falmouth indexed in Cork instead of Cornwall, Ferryden in Overseas instead of Angus and Arundel in Norway! There are five whole pages out of the 28 where the places have not been allocated a county at all. Many of these birth places are blank, abbreviated or obscure, but others are instantly recognisable, such as Morpeth, Tipton, Halifax, Glamis, Kirkcaldy and Pontypridd.</p> <p align="justify">Unlike most of the other Find My Past databases, there is no facility to submit corrections to these indexes.</p> http://cmgurney.blogspot.com/2011/09/uk-genealogy-news-views-12-september.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Caroline Gurney)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-612731037367610064.post-7720537925454845362Tue, 06 Sep 2011 16:52:00 +00002011-09-06T18:50:42.916+01:00GlenisterMarinersNew ZealandNewspapersUSAMerchant Navy records: Wreck, Rescue & Racism<p align="justify">My son in law's great grandfather, Leonard Harold Glenister, 1904-1995, was a merchant seaman. So when <a title="Find My Past" href="http://www.findmypast.co.uk" target="_blank">Find My Past</a> released their new collection of <a title="Merchant Navy records" href="http://www.findmypast.co.uk/search/merchant-navy-seamen">Merchant Navy records</a> last week I looked him up. </p> <p align="justify">The records are index cards created by the Registrar General of Shipping and Seamen for all those serving on British merchant navy vessels from 1918 to 1941. The front of each card contains biographical information plus a description and, if you are lucky, there is a photograph on the back, together with details of ships on which the person served.</p> <p align="justify">I duly found a card for him, covering the period 1918 to 1921. He joined the merchant service as a "<a title="Deck Boy" href="http://goo.gl/yfX67" target="_blank">Deck Boy</a>" in 1918, aged 14.&nbsp; He was only 4 foot 7 inches in height, with light brown hair and grey eyes. He looked very solemn and worried in his photograph.</p> <p align="justify"><a href="http://lh5.ggpht.com/-ZK_9cTxWNlI/TmZPnINCgxI/AAAAAAAAB5A/dA1AdUHK09A/s1600-h/Glenister%252520Leonard%252520Harold%2525201918.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto; display: block; float: none" title="Glenister Leonard Harold 1918" alt="Glenister Leonard Harold 1918" src="http://lh4.ggpht.com/-n7h5gpdWK4M/TmZPnvoLe6I/AAAAAAAAB5E/5QWBMSqTqMU/Glenister%252520Leonard%252520Harold%2525201918_thumb.jpg?imgmax=800" width="211" height="338"></a></p> <p align="justify">Find My Past have included a helpful link to the <a title="Crew List Index Project" href="http://www.crewlist.org.uk" target="_blank">Crew List Index Project</a>, to identify the names of ships from the official numbers used on the index cards. From CLIP I learned that Leonard's first ship, which he joined on 23 January 1919, was the <a title="SS Zealandic" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SS_Zealandic_(1911)" target="_blank"><em>SS Zealandic</em></a>. Constructed by <a title="Harland and Wolff" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harland_and_Wolff">Harland and Wolff</a> in Belfast, she was launched in 1911 and owned by the <a title="White Star Line" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Star_Line">White Star Line</a>, of <em>Titanic</em> fame. Her home port was Liverpool. In 1917 she was commandeered by the Royal Navy for the transportation of troops and was still being used for that purpose when Leonard joined her, sailing between Liverpool and Wellington in New Zealand. Troops returning home were carried in one direction and meat from New Zealand in the other.</p> <p align="justify"><a href="http://lh3.ggpht.com/-5oVI3_TDrhU/TmZPoBVgvrI/AAAAAAAAB5I/tkEr_TVal5I/s1600-h/SS-Zealandic%25255B1%25255D.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto; display: block; float: none" title="SS Zealandic" alt="SS Zealandic" src="http://lh3.ggpht.com/-KnA6AUrOYPk/TmZPo_cRuWI/AAAAAAAAB5M/Gmua1hROgyE/SS-Zealandic_thumb%25255B1%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="568" height="377"></a></p> <p align="justify">On 13 January 1920, Leonard moved to his second ship, <a title="SS Athenic" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SS_Athenic"><em>SS Athenic</em></a>, also owned by the White Star Line. She was a passenger liner, built in Belfast by Harland and Wolff and launched in 1901. She carried 121 passengers in first class, 117 second class and 450 third class. The ship was equipped with electric lighting and cooling chambers for the transport of frozen lamb. Like the <em>Zealandic</em>, she sailed on the New Zealand route.</p> <p align="justify"><a href="http://lh3.ggpht.com/-dQ8hvw1p1F4/TmZPra1XqII/AAAAAAAAB5Q/m3GNoNJHsLg/s1600-h/SS-Athenic%25255B1%25255D.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto; display: block; float: none" title="SS Athenic" alt="SS Athenic" src="http://lh3.ggpht.com/-07tR-mJfj90/TmZPr_wdpaI/AAAAAAAAB5U/S219MspXZoc/SS-Athenic_thumb.jpg?imgmax=800" width="550" height="358"></a></p> <p align="justify">Leonard Glenister's voyage on the <em>Athenic</em> turned out to be rather eventful. I have pieced together the following account of what happened from&nbsp; newspaper reports in the United States and New Zealand. </p> <p align="justify">On her outward journey from London to Wellington, via the Panama Canal, the <em>Athenic</em> was carrying 500 homebound New Zealand soldiers. On 2 February they were docked in Newport News, Virginia, where an influenza epidemic was raging. The soldiers were forbidden to go ashore but 50 of them defied the order. Their commanding officer promptly reported them to the local police and they were arrested as deserters. According to the newspaper report, "They resented the charge of being deserters, but were herded back to their ship without difficulty after a brief stay in the police station". <em>Athenic</em> was due to sail the following day but was kept in port for a further three days by a fierce storm which brought 50 mph winds and huge waves.</p> <p align="justify"><a title="From the collection of Bj&ouml;rn Larsson" href="http://www.timetableimages.com/maritime/index.htm" rel="From the collection of Bj&ouml;rn Larsson" target="_blank"><img style="margin: 0px auto; display: block; float: none" title="Bj&ouml;rn Larsson's Maritime Timetable Images" alt="Bj&ouml;rn Larsson's Maritime Timetable Images" src="http://lh6.ggpht.com/-O92ubFAM21M/TmZPuO_zDFI/AAAAAAAAB5Y/MJTSbtwA2Fg/SS-Munamar-cropped%25255B1%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="564" height="380"></a></p> <p align="justify">The return journey was even more dramatic. On Sunday 2 May 1920, an American steamer, the <em>SS Munamar</em>, on a voyage from Antilla, Cuba to New York, ran aground on a reef off San Salvador Island in the Bahamas. The ship was in a very dangerous position and taking on water fast, so the passengers were all put into the lifeboats. <em>Athenic</em> was in the vicinity and received <em>Munamar</em>'s SOS call about 9pm. The first <em>Athenic</em>'s passengers knew of the incident was when her engines suddenly stopped. It was too dark to effect a rescue but fortunately it was a calm night, so the <em>Munamar</em>'s passengers sat in their lifeboats, whilst the <em>Athenic</em> circled, waiting for dawn. At daybreak on 3 May the 83 passengers from the <em>Munamar</em> were rescued, and their baggage and the mails salvaged from the stranded ship. The whole operation took about two hours.</p> <p align="justify"><a title="Bj&ouml;rn Larsson" href="http://www.timetableimages.com/maritime/index.htm"><img style="margin: 0px auto; display: block; float: none" title="Bj&ouml;rn Larsson's Maritime Timetable Images" alt="Bj&ouml;rn Larsson's Maritime Timetable Images" src="http://lh6.ggpht.com/-rxFQHSzfd2c/TmZPuw0QIdI/AAAAAAAAB5c/rPXpygIIi84/Munamar-stateroom-cropped%25255B3%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="482" height="399"></a></p> <p align="justify"><em>Athenic</em> had a full passenger list and no empty berths, so the Captain ordered beds to be made up in the public rooms for the new arrivals. Unfortunately, this led to an ugly display of racism. 30 of the rescued passengers were black and the other <em>Munamar</em> passengers objected strongly to sharing accommodation with them. They "made a great many complaints" but the Captain of the <em>Athenic</em> stood firm. No doubt all concerned were very relieved when the <em>Athenic</em> landed the <em>Munamar</em>'s passengers at Newport News, three days later. From there they made their way to New York by train.</p> <p align="justify">The <em>Munamar</em> was eventually floated off the reef, after 2,000 bags of sugar from her cargo were thrown overboard, and taken to a dry dock in Jacksonville, Florida, for repairs. She then returned to service between Cuba and New York. Some time later, Captain Crossland of the <em>Athenic</em> was given a gold watch by President Warren Harding, in recognition of his ship's rescue efforts.</p> http://cmgurney.blogspot.com/2011/09/merchant-navy-records-wreck-rescue.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Caroline Gurney)2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-612731037367610064.post-8602507602176404585Sat, 03 Sep 2011 22:43:00 +00002011-09-04T00:39:43.653+01:00BedfordshireEatonSNGFSNGF - Ahnentafel Roulette<p>Tonight's <a href="http://www.geneamusings.com/2011/09/saturday-night-genealogy-fun-ahnentafel.html" target="_blank">Saturday Night Genealogy Fun</a> challenge from Randy Seaver is:</p> <ol> <li> <div align="justify">How old would your great-grandfather be now, if he had lived? Divide this number by four and round off to a whole number. This is your "roulette number."</div></li> <li> <div align="justify">Use your pedigree charts to find the person with that number in your <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ahnentafel">ahnentafel</a>. Who is that person?</div></li> <li> <div align="justify">Tell us three facts about the person with that "roulette number."</div></li></ol> <p>My great-grandfather, Rev Alban Edgar Brunskill Davis, was born in 1852. Had he lived, he would be 159 years old. Dividing this number by four gives me a "roulette number" of 40.</p> <p>Number 40 in my ahnentafel is my 3x great grandfather, William Eaton, 1777-1857.</p> <p>My three facts about William are:</p> <ol> <li> <div align="justify">He was a carpenter in the small village of Dean in Bedfordshire and also had a side line selling beer. He was the fifth in an unbroken line of seven generations of Eatons who were carpenters in Dean, spanning the period 1679 to 1898. </div></li> <li>He married three times. </li> <ul> <li>His first wife was Elizabeth Hardwick, 1779-1814. Elizabeth was from Great Staughton in Huntingdonshire, where they married in 1801. William was two years older than Elizabeth.</li> <li>His second wife was Martha Windsor, 1796-1820. They married in Dean in 1815. William was 19 years older than Martha.</li> <li>His third wife was my 3x great grandmother, <a href="http://cmgurney.blogspot.com/2011/02/surname-saturday-panther.html" target="_blank">Elizabeth Panther</a>, 1802-1868. William was 25 years older than Elizabeth.</li></ul> <li>As a result of these three marriages, William had 17 children over a period of 39 years, from 1803 to 1842. His last child was born when he was 65:</li> <ul> <li>With Elizabeth Hardwick he had eight children:</li> <ul> <li>Sarah Eaton, 1803-1803</li> <li>William Eaton, 1804-1824</li> <li>Thomas Eaton, 1805</li> <li>Samuel Eaton, 1806</li> <li>Mary Eaton, 1808</li> <li>Hannah Eaton, 1809</li> <li>John Eaton, 1811</li> <li>Joseph Eaton, 1813-1814</li></ul> <li>With Martha Windsor he had only one child:</li> <ul> <li>Elizabeth Eaton, 1816</li></ul> <li>With Elizabeth Panther he had eight children:</li> <ul> <li>Robert Eaton, 1822-1898</li> <li>Sarah Eaton, 1823-1832</li> <li>Ann Burgess Eaton, 1825</li> <li>Emma Eaton, 1828</li> <li>William Eaton, 1829</li> <li>Mary Eaton, 1832</li> <li>Sally Burgess Eaton, 1839</li> <li>Samuel Panther Eaton, 1842</li></ul></ul></ol> http://cmgurney.blogspot.com/2011/09/sngf-ahnentafel-roulette.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Caroline Gurney)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-612731037367610064.post-8394397837223967605Tue, 23 Aug 2011 00:40:00 +00002011-09-12T01:51:06.998+01:00ArchivesCensusEssexLondonResearchScotlandTNAUK Genealogy News & Views: 23 August 2011<p align="justify"><font color="#333333"><strong>Only a week left to get Essex records for free</strong></font></p> <p align="justify"><a title="Essex Record Office" href="http://www.essex.gov.uk/Libraries-Archives/Record-Office/Pages/Record-Office.aspx" target="_blank">Essex Record Office</a> currently have digital images of a number of parish registers available free via the <a title="Essex Ancestors" href="http://seax.essexcc.gov.uk/displayParishContents.asp" target="_blank">Essex Ancestors</a> section of their <a title="SEAX" href="http://seax.essexcc.gov.uk" target="_blank">SEAX</a> search engine. Coverage varies by date and parish - excellent for Dedham and very poor for Prittlewell, for example. From 30 August they will be offering unlimited access to Essex parish registers and wills on a newly launched Essex Ancestors website but it will be a subscription service. The charges will range from £5 for one day's access to £75 for a year. So if you have Essex ancestors, take a look to see if digital images for their parish are currently free online, before this week's window of opportunity closes.</p> <p><strong>London Confirmation Records, 1850-1921, on Ancestry</strong></p> <p align="justify"><a title="Ancestry" href="http://www.ancestry.co.uk" target="_blank">Ancestry</a> usually add new databases quietly, a few days before they announce them publicly. I regularly check the <a title="New Collections" href="http://www.ancestry.co.uk/cs/reccol/default" target="_blank">New Collections</a> page to see what they've sneaked in and last week I spotted the addition of <a title="London Confirmation Records, 1850-1921" href="http://search.ancestry.co.uk/search/db.aspx?dbid=1625" target="_blank">London Confirmation Records, 1850-1921</a>. I had high hopes for this collection but they were soon dashed. The new database contains&nbsp; records from just 25 parishes, some covering very short time periods, such as St John, Kensal Green, 1892-99 and St Jude, South Kensington, 1904-1912. There are less than 23,000 records in total. So don't get your hopes up, fellow London researchers! Oh, and St Martin, Kensal Rise, has been indexed as St John, Kensal Green!</p> <p align="justify"><strong>Poor indexing of the 1851 census on Find My Past</strong></p> <p align="justify">British genealogists often complain that Ancestry make a hash of transcribing our records, as in the example above. Yesterday I found equally poor indexing of the <a title="1851 census" href="http://www.findmypast.co.uk/search/census/1851/person" target="_blank">1851 census</a> records on <a title="Find My Past" href="http://www.findmypast.co.uk" target="_blank">Find My Past</a>. I was looking at the delightfully named Dorset village of Whitchurch Canonicorum and found that over 160 people born in the village had their birthplace mistranscribed as "Whitchurch and Coventry". Other gems of mistranscription included "Whitchurch Lanonicorner" and "Whitchurch Cononicorem". Given that the parish name was clearly written, in full, at the top of the first page, you'd think it would have been fairly easy to get it right! I've suggested to Find My Past that they should review their indexing of this whole section of the census.</p> <p align="justify"><strong>Scottish records in English archives</strong></p> <p align="justify">People researching Scottish ancestry naturally gravitate to Scottish repositories and to websites such as <a title="Scotland's People" href="http://www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk/" target="_blank">Scotland's People</a>. But don't forget that English archives also contain important Scottish records. I have struck lucky in a number of places. In the <a title="National Archives" href="http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/" target="_blank">National Archives</a> at Kew, the <a title="TS 11/1082" href="http://goo.gl/1dqSW" target="_blank">TS 11/1082</a> series of papers relating to the 1745 Jacobite rebellion contains three letters sent to one of my Scottish ancestors. I found deeds for properties in Angus, owned by my 17th century ancestors, in the <a title="Sheffield Archives" href="http://www.sheffield.gov.uk/libraries/archives-and-local-studies" target="_blank">Sheffield Archives</a>, in the papers of a local aristocratic family of Scots descent. And I have been able to trace the careers of a number of Scottish relatives in the <a title="India Office Records" href="http://indiafamily.bl.uk/UI/Home.aspx" target="_blank">India Office Records</a> at the <a title="British Library" href="http://www.bl.uk/" target="_blank">British Library</a>. The <a title="Access to Archives" href="http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/a2a/advanced-search.aspx?tab=1" target="_blank">Access to Archives</a> search engine is a good place to start looking for Scottish names and places in English archives and you should also search the <a title="National Archives online catalogue" href="http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/catalogue/" target="_blank">National Archives online catalogue</a>.</p> http://cmgurney.blogspot.com/2011/08/uk-genealogy-news-views-22082011.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Caroline Gurney)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-612731037367610064.post-7683474973125630097Sat, 06 Aug 2011 22:14:00 +00002012-01-21T10:36:16.013+00:00Ancestral FacesCanadaPhotographsResearchScotlandIdentifying & Dating Old Photos: Mystery Photo 1<p align="justify">This evening I participated in an excellent webinar by <a title="Maureen Taylor, Photo Detective" href="http://www.maureentaylor.com/" target="_blank">Maureen Taylor, Photo Detective</a>, on the subject of <a title="Identifying and Dating Family Photographs" href="http://www.scgsgenealogy.com/storage/Extension/Taylor_Aug6_Handout.pdf" target="_blank">Identifying and Dating Family Photographs</a>. It has really motivated me to get back to work on an album containing photographs of my Lowe ancestors in Coupar Angus, Scotland, which a cousin shared with me last year. See <a title="Every Picture Tells a Story" href="http://cmgurney.blogspot.com/2011/01/every-picture-tells-story.html" target="_blank">Every Picture Tells a Story</a> for the background. Of the 96 photographs in the album, only 26 have so far been identified.</p> <p align="justify">&nbsp;</p> <p align="justify"><a href="http://lh3.ggpht.com/-sKbPC8El9iU/Tj28py_C-zI/AAAAAAAAB08/ZmMEpbeindE/s1600-h/68%25255B3%25255D.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto; display: block; float: none" title="68" alt="68" src="http://lh5.ggpht.com/-9RTtD0o0bPc/Tj28qaoaj4I/AAAAAAAAB1A/_9qET_FA-fM/68_thumb%25255B1%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="308" height="480"></a></p> <p align="justify">&nbsp;</p> <p align="justify">I have decided to start with this full length portrait of an unknown man because it has details of the photographer on the reverse:</td></p> <p align="justify">.</p> <p align="justify"><a href="http://lh6.ggpht.com/-AZqNQzckg7g/Tj28rArkuJI/AAAAAAAAB1E/z7sICml-gIc/s1600-h/68a%25255B3%25255D.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto; display: block; float: none" title="68a" alt="68a" src="http://lh5.ggpht.com/-VqlIWpUgllI/Tj28rlkZgAI/AAAAAAAAB1I/nAycnP6KSvI/68a_thumb%25255B1%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="280" height="480"></a></p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p>Here is what I know so far, set out under headings suggested by Maureen's webinar:</p> <p><strong>Provenance of Photograph</strong></p> <p align="justify">From an album belonging to <a title="Dr John Lowe" href="http://www.carosfamily.com/getperson.php?personID=I612&amp;tree=mytree" target="_blank">Dr John Lowe</a> (1849-1925), and his wife, <a title="Annie Willie Cowpar" href="http://www.carosfamily.com/getperson.php?personID=I621&amp;tree=mytree" target="_blank">Annie Willie Cowpar</a>. The album was subsequently taken to Canada by their son, <a title="Major Robert Lowe" href="http://www.carosfamily.com/getperson.php?personID=I622&amp;tree=mytree" target="_blank">Major Robert Lowe</a> (1882-1955). It is now in the possession of one of his daughters, my third cousin, once removed, from whom I obtained a digital copy.</p> <p><strong>Type of Photograph</strong></p> <p>Paper print, common in England from 1858 to 1914. </p> <p><font color="#333333"><strong>Photographer</strong></font></p> <p>Thanks to <a title="Photo London" href="http://www.photolondon.org.uk/pages/details.asp?pid=3711" target="_blank">Photo London</a>, I know that Alexander Lamont Henderson, born in Edinburgh in 1838, had a studio at 49 King William Street, London Bridge, from 1860 until November 1887. His son gave his photographic library to the Guildhall Library in November 1907. Alas, it was destroyed during the Blitz in 1942. Otherwise I could simply have looked up the print number in the library.</p> <p><strong>Internal Evidence</strong></p> <p>The painted window, looking out on a country scene, was popular in the late 1860s.</p> <p><strong>Costume</strong> </p> <p>A number of features suggest the first half of the 1860s:</p> <ul> <li>Loose fitting suit <li>Peg top trousers, wide at the top and tapering to a close fit at the ankle <li>Dark jacket worn with light trousers <li>Shoes neither square-toed nor pointed</li></ul> <p><strong>Genealogical Research</strong></p> <p align="justify">Most of the photographs in the album were taken in Scotland. This one suggests someone who was living in London. Between 1863 and 1872, <a title="George Lowe" href="http://www.carosfamily.com/getperson.php?personID=I602&amp;tree=mytree" target="_blank">George Lowe</a> (1819-1915), worked in London as an engineer, first at Woolwich Arsenal and later at St Pancras. He was aged 44 to 53 during this period, which fits with the age of the man in the photograph. I have a photograph of George Lowe taken in 1902, when he was 83. Comparing the two photographs, there would seem to be a similarity in the eyes, nose, mouth and ears:</p> <p align="justify">&nbsp;</p> <p align="justify"><a href="http://lh3.ggpht.com/-FEPZOQmlsvY/Tj28sABFbSI/AAAAAAAAB1M/_925abrW6HU/s1600-h/Copy%252520of%252520Lowe%252520George1902%252520head%25255B4%25255D.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto; display: block; float: none" title="Copy of Lowe George1902 head" alt="Copy of Lowe George1902 head" src="http://lh6.ggpht.com/-fUMhgwXSJgY/Tj28svoOrQI/AAAAAAAAB1Q/gqpqvks5OcY/Copy%252520of%252520Lowe%252520George1902%252520head_thumb%25255B2%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="230" height="311"></a>&nbsp;</p> <p><strong>Add up all the Clues</strong></p> <p>The evidence so far suggests that this may be a photograph of George Lowe, taken when he was working in London during the 1860s. </p> <p><strong>Next Steps</strong></p> <p>George Lowe and his family emigrated first to Canada, in 1872, and then to the USA in 1873. I am in touch with one of his descendants in the USA, my fourth cousin. I shall email him to see if he, or his relatives, have any photographs of George Lowe.</p> http://cmgurney.blogspot.com/2011/08/identifying-dating-old-photos-mystery.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Caroline Gurney)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-612731037367610064.post-3934303065154422123Thu, 04 Aug 2011 00:52:00 +00002011-08-04T01:52:59.543+01:00McCarthyPoliceRailwayResearchPorter who told porkies had previous<p align="justify">In <a title="Porter tells porkies to the police" href="http://cmgurney.blogspot.com/2010/12/porter-tells-porkies-to-police.html" target="_blank">Porter tells porkies to the police</a> I wrote about how my great-grandfather, John McCarthy, lied about his age in order to join the Metropolitan Police. </p> <p align="justify">Before joining the police, John had been a porter and signalman with the London, Brighton and South Coast Railway. Yesterday Ancestry released a new database of <a title="Railway Employment Records, 1833-1963" href="http://search.ancestry.co.uk/search/db.aspx?dbid=1728&amp;bm=u" target="_blank">Railway Employment Records, 1833-1963</a> and I was very pleased to find John McCarthy's service record amongst them.</p> <p align="justify">&nbsp;</p> <p align="justify"><a href="http://lh3.ggpht.com/-2dEqD5et6mw/TjntIvDrrQI/AAAAAAAAB0s/KtWEXbCSxHg/s1600-h/Shadwell%252520Station%2525201910%25255B8%25255D.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto; display: block; float: none" title="Shadwell Station 1910" alt="Shadwell Station 1910" src="http://lh4.ggpht.com/-j-s4EmMNr0Q/TjntKbD5LBI/AAAAAAAAB0w/umjbvRUc6zQ/Shadwell%252520Station%2525201910_thumb%25255B6%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="541" height="350"></a></p> <p align="justify">&nbsp;</p> <p align="justify">The details can be briefly stated: John joined the London, Brighton and South Coast Railway as a porter at Shadwell Station in March 1880, on a salary of 16 shillings a week (about £400 today). On 13 September 1880 he was promoted to signalman and his pay went up to 22 shillings (about £550). He resigned on 25 November 1881, a month before he started his new career in the Metropolitan Police.</p> <p align="justify">What intrigued me was to see that John had also lied about his age to the railway company. In March 1880 John was 16 but told them he was 19. The reason for the deception is baffling, as the records show other boys taken on as porters on the same salary as John, aged only 15. Whatever his motives, it is clear that he had "previous" when it came to pulling a fast one on the Metropolitan Police.</p> <p align="justify">The staff records also reveal that he was recommended to the railway company by <a title="Hyam &amp; Co" href="http://www.vam.ac.uk/moc/collections/clothing/hyam_suit/index.html" target="_blank">Hyam &amp; Co</a>. They were a large and very well known firm of outfitters, with headquarters in Oxford Street and branches in all the main British cities. In 1851 they advertised themselves in the official catalogue of the <a title="Great Exhibition" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Exhibition" target="_blank">Great Exhibition</a> as "the most extensive tailors and clothiers in the world". My assumption is that John McCarthy worked for them before joining the railway. Perhaps it was from them that he acquired his taste for elegant clothes, which led to his nickname: <a title="The Beau Brummell of the Yard" href="http://cmgurney.blogspot.com/2010/11/beau-brummell-of-yard.html" target="_blank">The Beau Brummell of the Yard</a>.</p> <p align="justify">&nbsp;</p> <p align="justify"><a href="http://lh6.ggpht.com/-XD4awDFaf70/TjntLhqKiRI/AAAAAAAAB00/Ue6csRdYwN0/s1600-h/Hyam%252520%252526%252520Co%25255B8%25255D.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto; display: block; float: none" title="Hyam &amp; Co" alt="Hyam &amp; Co" src="http://lh5.ggpht.com/-eRlkQLeqnUQ/TjntMvelwqI/AAAAAAAAB04/Z3agFueu8mg/Hyam%252520%252526%252520Co_thumb%25255B6%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="539" height="668"></a></p> http://cmgurney.blogspot.com/2011/08/porter-who-told-porkies-had-previous.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Caroline Gurney)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-612731037367610064.post-6814473959232259677Sat, 30 Jul 2011 20:31:00 +00002011-07-30T21:37:50.909+01:00GraveyardsResearchSNGFSNGF: 10 Signs you have summer holiday GOCD<p align="justify">For tonight's SNGF challenge, <a title="Randy Seaver" href="http://www.geneamusings.com/2011/07/saturday-night-genealogy-fun-signs-you.html" target="_blank">Randy Seaver</a> has invited us to add to Michael John Neill's list of <a title="10 Signs You Have Genealogy OCD" href="http://rootdig.blogspot.com/2011/07/10-signs-you-have-genealogy-ocd.html" target="_blank">10 Signs You Have Genealogy OCD</a>. </p> <p align="justify">As we are in the middle of the summer holidays, I decided to base my list on that theme:</p> <p align="justify">&nbsp;</p> <p align="justify"><a href="http://lh3.ggpht.com/-Au1CaD2FcNQ/TjRq0AU6vwI/AAAAAAAAB0k/DB-LlXzYQ4k/s1600-h/Summer%252520Holiday%25255B9%25255D.jpg"><img style="background-image: none; border-right-width: 0px; margin: 0px auto; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: block; float: none; border-top-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px; padding-top: 0px" title="Summer Holiday" border="0" alt="Summer Holiday" src="http://lh4.ggpht.com/-f1u1H1tktJA/TjRq1O2D0PI/AAAAAAAAB0o/8iXV-3qbF1k/Summer%252520Holiday_thumb%25255B5%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="342" height="480"></a></p> <p align="justify">&nbsp;</p> <ol> <li> <div align="justify">You book your holiday accommodation in a former ancestral hometown - if possible, in a former ancestral home.<br><br></div> <li> <div align="justify">You pack your laptop, notebook and pencils but forget your swimsuit and sunblock.<br><br></div> <li> <div align="justify">You take three days to get there because of all the genealogy related stops along the way.<br><br></div> <li> <div align="justify">You spend your days in the archives / cemetery whilst your family go to the beach.<br><br></div> <li> <div align="justify">You spend one evening at the local genealogy society meeting.<br><br></div> <li> <div align="justify">You spend your other evenings researching online whilst your family watch TV.<br><br></div> <li> <div align="justify">You send reproductions of old postcards to your friends and family back home.<br><br></div> <li> <div align="justify">You buy local maps and histories as souvenirs.<br><br></div> <li> <div align="justify">You are Facebook friends with all the local genealogists by the time you leave.<br><br></div> <li> <div align="justify">All your holiday snaps are of gravestones.</div></li></ol> http://cmgurney.blogspot.com/2011/07/sngf-10-signs-you-have-summer-holiday.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Caroline Gurney)2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-612731037367610064.post-2589596113678311187Sat, 23 Jul 2011 22:50:00 +00002011-07-23T23:53:17.684+01:00McCarthyPoetrySNGFSNGF: Where I'm From<p align="justify">This week's Saturday Night Genealogy Fun challenge from <a title="Randy Seaver" href="http://www.geneamusings.com/" target="_blank">Randy Seaver</a> is to write a poem about "Where I'm From" using the template found at the website <a href="http://www.swva.net/fred1st/wif.htm">http://www.swva.net/fred1st/wif.htm</a>.</p> <p align="justify">Here is my entry:</p> <p><strong>Where I'm From </strong></p> <p align="justify">I am from toast and dripping, Hovis and honey, full cream milk and eggy soldiers.</p> <p align="justify">I am from a pebble-dashed semi - coal bunker, Mabel Lucy Attwell print, ginger kitten climbing the curtains - next door to the district nurse.</p> <p align="justify">I am from the rose trellis and vegetable plot, compost heap and cherry tree. Opposite the oak wood dell, pirate haven and Red Indian camp, where my brother fell from a tree.</p> <p align="justify">I am from grammar school education and eccentricity, Scottish pride and London poverty. I am from upstairs and downstairs - Alban and Georgina and Viv and Alice.</p> <p align="justify">I am from wanderlust and laughter, a passion for history and the gift of the gab. From "I can see a way round this" to "you get yours, mate".</p> <p align="justify">I am from mixed-marriage, second-class, never quite good enough Catholics. I am from Bible believing Baptists, upwardly mobile Methodists, bells and smells Anglicans, down the pub atheists. </p> <p align="justify">I am from the Surrey hills, channelling Dorset, Yorkshire, London. I am from the Braes of Atholl and from the Blarney Stone. I am from puddings - Christmas and Yorkshire - spaghetti bolognese and the Chinese chippy.</p> <p align="justify">I am from the snake in Dad's tent and the flood over the library. I am from Passchendaele and Poona. From the Rector of Brympton and McCarthy of the Yard.</p> <p align="justify">I am from a biscuit tin of photos, tea-time stories, Grandma's memories. I am from a crocheted cot blanket, an ivory hairbrush and a tortoiseshell mirror. </p> <p align="justify">I am from strong roots in good soil.</p> http://cmgurney.blogspot.com/2011/07/sngf-where-i-from.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Caroline Gurney)6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-612731037367610064.post-2812995793983037273Mon, 27 Jun 2011 17:04:00 +00002011-06-27T18:10:16.640+01:00AberdeenshireArmyScotlandStablesAn ancestor who fought at Waterloo<p align="justify">Since my daughter married, two years ago, I have been tracing my son in law's ancestry. I recently discovered that his 4x great grandfather, George Stables, fought at the <a title="Battle of Waterloo" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Waterloo" target="_blank">Battle of Waterloo</a> in June 1815.</p> <p align="justify">George Stables was born at <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cairnie" target="_blank">Cairnie</a> in <a title="Aberdeenshire" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aberdeenshire" target="_blank">Aberdeenshire</a> in December 1782, the son of George Stables, a crofter, and Jean (or Jane) Minty. George junior originally worked as a weaver but on 9 February 1807, at the age of 24, he enlisted as a Gunner in the <a title="Royal Artillery" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Artillery" target="_blank">Royal Artillery</a>.</p> <p align="justify">Unfortunately, the only part of his military service record which survives is his discharge record, so it is impossible to piece together the details of his military service prior to Waterloo. It seems highly likely, however, that he saw service during the <a title="Peninsular War" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peninsular_war" target="_blank">Peninsular War</a> (1808 to 1814).</p> <p align="justify">&nbsp;</p> <p align="justify"><a href="http://lh3.ggpht.com/-X4nCYuRw_wc/Tgi4HR-NyyI/AAAAAAAABVc/MVPctF6H9gM/s1600-h/RFA%25255B6%25255D.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto; display: block; float: none" title="RFA" alt="RFA" src="http://lh5.ggpht.com/-6VQrWGpRZTg/Tgi4IGMYZcI/AAAAAAAABVg/eytFM_jwn_8/RFA_thumb%25255B5%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="121" height="480"></a></p> <p align="justify">&nbsp;</p> <p align="justify">By 1815, George Stables was a Gunner in Captain Courtenay Ilbert's Company, 5th Battalion, Royal Artillery, which formed part of Wellington's Reserve and did not see action at Waterloo. Shortly before the battle, however, a detachment of 3 Officers, 3 Bombardiers and 33 Gunners were sent from Captain Ilbert's Company to join the 2nd Company, 3rd Battalion, Royal Artillery, under the command of Brevet Major Thomas Rogers. George Stables was one of the Gunners and Lieutenant George Sylvester Maule was one of the Officers.</p> <p align="justify">George Maule kept a journal which is now in the <a title="Wiltshire and Swindon Archives" href="http://www.wshc.eu/about-wshc/archives.html" target="_blank">Wiltshire and Swindon Archives</a>. I was able to purchase a transcript and commentary by Mike Robinson at <a title="1815 Limited" href="http://www.1815.ltd.uk/site/index.php" target="_blank">1815 Limited</a>. I also found online a detailed presentation on the history of <a title="Rogers' Company of the Royal Artillery" href="www.army.mod.uk/documents/general/spring02_30btytext.doc" target="_blank">Rogers' Company of the Royal Artillery</a>. From these two sources, it is possible to know what George Maule and the men under his command experienced in the three days from 15 to 18 June 1815.</p> <p align="justify">On the evening of Thursday, 15 June, they were quartered at the Chateau at Foret, two and a half miles south of <a title="Brussels" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brussels" target="_blank">Brussels</a>. They were roused from their beds at 11 pm by a courier bringing orders to march. Between 1 and 2 am on the morning of Friday 16 June they left Foret and marched to Brussels, where they waited some time for the 5th Division, of which they were part, to form up. They then departed by the Namur Gate, marching to the tune of "<a title="The British Grenadiers" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Grenadiers" target="_blank">The British Grenadiers</a>".</p> <p align="justify">About 8 o'clock on the morning of 16 June they arrived at <a title="Waterloo" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waterloo,_Belgium" target="_blank">Waterloo</a> and rested on either side of the road outside the village, in the <a title="Forest of Soignes" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonian_Forest" target="_blank">Forest of Soignes</a>. During the course of the morning they passed several places from which the inhabitants had fled, apart from some terrified old women. </p> <p align="justify">&nbsp;</p> <p align="justify"><a href="http://lh3.ggpht.com/-S-yB3jn1JdQ/Tgi4Iih0uUI/AAAAAAAABU0/g1PG0vdGgrE/s1600-h/Quatre-Bras%25255B1%25255D.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto; display: block; float: none" title="Quatre Bras" alt="Quatre Bras" src="http://lh5.ggpht.com/-ADuni4BW2gQ/Tgi4JYd_DyI/AAAAAAAABU4/YfmoURxGU7Y/Quatre-Bras_thumb.jpg?imgmax=800" width="468" height="331"></a></p> <p align="justify">&nbsp;</p> <p align="justify">At 1pm they arrived at the strategic crossroads of <a title="Quatre Bras" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Quatre_Bras" target="_blank">Quatre Bras</a>, where Dutch and Belgian troops were already engaged in fighting the French. Rogers' Company, who were equipped with six 9-pounder guns, formed a line and were soon in action. They took part in a furious artillery duel with the French, whose guns were well hidden in a wood 600 yards in front of them, and fought off a charge of <a title="Cuirassiers" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuirassier" target="_blank">Cuirassiers</a> and a column of enemy infantry. The Company suffered heavy losses in men and horses but kept up their steady firing. The fighting carried on until dark (which at that time of year would have been late evening) when the two armies bivouacked where they had fought.</p> <p align="justify">At daybreak on Saturday 17 June they buried the dead officers and the ordinary soldiers, such as George Stables, took the opportunity to fit themselves out with new kit at the expense of their dead comrades. At 11 am they marched back they way they had come towards Waterloo, with French troops harrying them from behind. They were also caught in a dreadful storm. By 6.30 pm the whole British army had taken up its positions at the hamlet of <a title="Mont St. Jean" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mont-Saint-Jean,_Belgium" target="_blank">Mont St. Jean</a>, with the French about three quarters of a mile away, with whom they exchanged artillery fire until nightfall. Heavy rain extinguished their fires as they bivouacked for the night.</p> <p align="justify">&nbsp;</p> <p align="justify"><a href="http://lh5.ggpht.com/-NI7r0ITIO4o/Tgi4Khw2kuI/AAAAAAAABU8/QGNwmeZPGL8/s1600-h/Waterloo%25255B1%25255D.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto; display: block; float: none" title="Waterloo" alt="Waterloo" src="http://lh3.ggpht.com/-dtU1Lj6_FlY/Tgi4LarxaEI/AAAAAAAABVA/itpl9oZYPYw/Waterloo_thumb.jpg?imgmax=800" width="488" height="326"></a></p> <p align="justify">&nbsp;</p> <p align="justify">They were up and under arms before daybreak on Sunday 18 June, although the battle did not start until later in the morning. Rogers' Company were positioned in front of the infantry and were under direct orders from <a title="Wellington" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Wellesley,_1st_Duke_of_Wellington" target="_blank">Wellington</a> only to open fire on an enemy advance. The Commander of the 5th Division, <a title="Sir Thomas Picton" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sir_Thomas_Picton" target="_blank">Sir Thomas Picton</a>, stationed himself next to Rogers' artillery to direct their fire on the mass of French infantry.</p> <p align="justify">A present day member of Rogers' Company has <a href="www.army.mod.uk/documents/general/spring02_30btytext.doc" target="_blank">described the scene</a>:</p> <blockquote> <p align="justify"><em>Calmly the gunners waited with lighted portfires until the head of the French column appeared over the crest in front of the guns. At the word “fire” a tremendous salvo of grape shattered the enemy and before they could recover the British infantry charged them. A melee ensued which the gunners joined in, armed only with rammers, until the French resolve weakened and they gave way in confusion. So critical was the situation at this time that one of Rogers's guns was spiked by its Number 1 to prevent it being used by the enemy who seemed bound to capture it.</em></p></blockquote> <p align="justify">Sir Thomas Picton was killed close by the Company at this time. They then changed position twice before, down to only three guns, they took part in the final decisive action of the battle, the repulse of Napoleon's famed <a title="Imperial Guard" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imperial_Guard_(Napoleon_I)" target="_blank">Imperial Guard</a>, cutting down whole ranks with their murderous artillery fire. <p align="justify">&nbsp; <p align="justify"><a href="http://lh4.ggpht.com/-9DyQdIFOrJQ/Tgi4L0_AQ1I/AAAAAAAABVE/lIFxLD6Ko6U/s1600-h/Waterloo-Medal%25255B1%25255D.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto; display: block; float: none" title="Waterloo Medal" alt="Waterloo Medal" src="http://lh3.ggpht.com/-vU4kPaEuo2s/Tgi4MeDdovI/AAAAAAAABVI/vKjP4NFPQJI/Waterloo-Medal_thumb.jpg?imgmax=800" width="211" height="232"></a> <p align="justify">&nbsp; <p align="justify">Rogers' Company won a battle honour for their actions at Quatre Bras and Waterloo. Like all those who had fought in either action, George Stables received the <a title="Waterloo Medal" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waterloo_Medal" target="_blank">Waterloo Medal</a> and had 2 years added to his reckonable service for pension purposes. By 1816 he was back in Britain and stationed at the <a title="Royal Artillery Barracks" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Artillery_Barracks" target="_blank">Royal Artillery Barracks</a> in <a title="Woolwich" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woolwich" target="_blank">Woolwich</a>. On 26 October 1816 George married a Suffolk girl, Rebecca Dawson, at <a title="St Nicholas, Plumstead" href="http://www.nwkfhs.org.uk/plum_c01.htm" target="_blank">St Nicholas, Plumstead</a>. <p align="justify">George was discharged from the 5th Battalion of the Royal Artillery on 31 January 1819. The discharge papers contain a physical description. He was 5 foot 7.5 inches, with dark brown hair, blue eyes and a dark complexion. The official reason for his discharge was "ague and debility". Ague was the old term for <a title="malaria" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malaria" target="_blank">malaria</a>, a disease which devastated the British forces during the Peninsular War. This reinforces the likelihood that George Stables had seen service there. <p align="justify">George wasted no time in returning to Scotland after his discharge, settling at Cults, near <a title="Kennethmont" href="http://www.genuki.org.uk/big/sct/ABD/Kennethmont/description.html" target="_blank">Kennethmont</a> in Aberdeenshire, about 12 miles from his birthplace. His first known child, also George, was baptised at Kennethmont on 11 March 1819, so poor Rebecca must have travelled nearly 600 miles whilst heavily pregnant. Despite his "debility", George went on to live for another 40 years, drawing a pension of 9d a day from the army (about £30 in today's money). He also fathered eight more children with Rebecca. He died at Cults, of dropsy, on 20 December 1859, aged 77, and was buried in the kirkyard at Kennethmont.</p> http://cmgurney.blogspot.com/2011/06/ancestor-who-fought-at-waterloo.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Caroline Gurney)2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-612731037367610064.post-4282281112914428772Sun, 05 Jun 2011 23:24:00 +00002011-06-06T00:44:18.295+01:00Ancestral FacesBentleyBlogsTaylorThis is the Face of Genealogy<p>&nbsp;</p> <p><a href="http://lh5.ggpht.com/-tuzgAz0hSkE/TewQKKTIwvI/AAAAAAAABT8/6XR6KnkMdEA/s1600-h/JHT%25255B14%25255D.jpg"><img style="background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; margin: 0px auto; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: block; float: none; border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px" title="JHT" border="0" alt="JHT" src="http://lh3.ggpht.com/-GUOAxVqqgZo/TewQKiTcXSI/AAAAAAAABUA/3M5dJGkf0Wk/JHT_thumb%25255B12%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="334" height="480"></a></p> <p align="justify">&nbsp;</p> <p align="justify">Without genealogy I would never have known that James Hudson Taylor, 1832-1905, the famous missionary to China, was my second cousin, three times removed.</p> <p align="justify">&nbsp;</p> <p><a href="http://lh3.ggpht.com/-7VT5tv-_l9M/TewS6i6weUI/AAAAAAAABUE/-td46wtqNjk/s1600-h/Relationship%252520Chart%25255B30%25255D.jpg"><img style="background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; margin: 0px auto; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: block; float: none; border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px" title="Relationship Chart" border="0" alt="Relationship Chart" src="http://lh6.ggpht.com/-rBE9Pa3jMqo/TewS7M6l1mI/AAAAAAAABUI/VCi3Fs0tt7g/Relationship%252520Chart_thumb%25255B22%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="315" height="480"></a></p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p>This post is published in response to a <a title="request" href="http://www.geneabloggers.com/face-genealogy/" target="_blank">request</a> from <a title="Thomas MacEntee" href="http://goo.gl/VORXe" target="_blank">Thomas MacEntee</a> of <a title="GeneaBloggers" href="http://www.geneabloggers.com" target="_blank">GeneaBloggers</a>.</p> http://cmgurney.blogspot.com/2011/06/this-is-face-of-genealogy.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Caroline Gurney)3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-612731037367610064.post-2733482804309846732Sat, 14 May 2011 11:07:00 +00002011-05-14T12:08:46.355+01:00NippardSurnamesWiltshireSurname Saturday: Nippard<p align="justify">This is the rarest surname in my family tree - so rare that it doesn't appear in the surname books and I can't find a surname website which has any information about its derivation.</p> <p align="left">I have found it spelled in a wide variety of ways - Nepard, Neppard, Neppred, Nepprod, Nipard, Niperd, Niperhed, Nippards, Nipperd, Nippered, Nippierd, Nippred, Nipprid, Nipred, Niprid, Niprod and Nypred - but Nippard seems to be the most common form.</p> <p align="justify">Having searched for the surname derivation for years, I stumbled across the answer whilst doing a Google search on these variants. The name comes from a lost medieval settlement called <a title="Nypred" href="http://history.wiltshire.gov.uk/smr/getsmr.php?id=3400" target="_blank">Nypred</a> in the parish of <a title="Tisbury" href="http://history.wiltshire.gov.uk/community/getcom.php?community=Tisbury" target="_blank">Tisbury</a>, Wiltshire, the earliest reference to which dates from 1240. It was located somewhere in the area now known as Fonthill Old Park. </p> <p align="justify">&nbsp;</p> <p align="justify"><a href="http://lh5.ggpht.com/_zfxQ5eoshTo/Tc5ijIKmPTI/AAAAAAAABSY/mDMx1kG_LZc/s1600-h/tisbury_map00116.jpg"><img style="display: block; float: none; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto" title="tisbury_map001" alt="tisbury_map001" src="http://lh5.ggpht.com/_zfxQ5eoshTo/Tc5ij8-DkII/AAAAAAAABSc/kzoLc_Xiqfs/tisbury_map001_thumb14.jpg?imgmax=800" width="548" height="354"></a></p> <p align="justify">&nbsp;</p> <p align="justify">The earliest occurrence of the surname I have found is John de Nipred, who was one of the jurors at an <a title="Inquisition Post Mortem" href="http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/records/research-guides/inqusitions-post-mortem.htm" target="_blank">Inquisition Post Mortem</a> held in Tisbury on 16 July 1290. The earliest mention in a parish register is the burial of Katherin, daughter of Thomas Nypred, at <a title="Salisbury" href="http://history.wiltshire.gov.uk/community/getcom.php?id=193" target="_blank">Salisbury</a>, Wiltshire on 20 November 1561. Salisbury is some 12 miles from Tisbury. The surname continued to be very localised to this area, being found almost exclusively in Dorset, Hampshire, Somerset and Wiltshire right up until the 19th century.&nbsp; </p> <p align="justify">My own link to the family is my 7x great grandmother, Mary Nipperd, who married John Coles at <a title="Damerham" href="http://www.damerham.net/" target="_blank">Damerham</a>, Wiltshire, on 20 April 1703. I have no information about her baptism or parents, so she is one of my end-of-line brick walls. However, Damerham is less than 20 miles from Tisbury, so I think there is no doubt as to where Mary's - and my - Nippard ancestors originated.</p> http://cmgurney.blogspot.com/2011/05/surname-saturday-nippard.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Caroline Gurney)8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-612731037367610064.post-5839768407254171511Sat, 07 May 2011 21:01:00 +00002011-05-07T22:01:14.092+01:00BlogsResearchSNGF: A Genealogy Scavenger Hunt<h2>The Challenge</h2> <p>Tonight's challenge from <a title="Randy Seaver" href="http://www.geneamusings.com/2011/05/saturday-night-genealogy-fun-genealogy.html" target="_blank">Randy Seaver</a> is:</p> <p align="justify"><em>1.</em> <em>For each person listed below, provide the name of the mother of the person and the genea-blogger to whom they are related. </em></p> <p align="justify"><em>a) Lois Velleda Dreher</em></p> <p align="justify"><em>b) Mary Philomene Laurent</em></p> <p align="justify"><em>c) Ernest Francis Sheern</em></p> <p align="justify"><em>d) Cecelia Jost</em></p> <p align="justify"><em>e) Mary Jane Sovereen</em></p> <p align="justify"><em>f) Bethiah Brigham</em> </p> <p align="justify"><em>2.</em> <em>Tell us how you conducted this search, and what you may have learned from your searches.</em></p> <h2 align="justify">The Answers</h2> <p align="justify">1. The mother / genea-blogger in each case is:</p> <p align="justify">a) Irene Caroline Banet / Cyndi Beane Henry <em><a title="Mountain Genealogists" href="http://mountaingenealogy.blogspot.com" target="_blank">Mountain Genealogists</a></em></p> <p align="justify">b) Olivine Marie St. Louis / Brian Zalewski <a title="Zalewski Family Genealogy" href="http://www.zalewskifamily.net" target="_blank"><em>Zalewski Family Genealogy</em></a></p> <p align="justify">c) Ann Emily Leseure / Sheri Fenley <em><a title="The Educated Genealogist" href="http://sherifenley.blogspot.com" target="_blank">The Educated Genealogist</a></em></p> <p align="justify">d) Cecilia Kurta / Amy Coffin <em><a title="The We Tree Genealogy Blog" href="http://wetree.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">The We Tree Genealogy Blog</a></em></p> <p align="justify">e) Eliza Putman / Randy Seaver <em><a title="Genea-Musings" href="http://www.geneamusings.com/" target="_blank">Genea-Musings</a></em></p> <p align="justify">f) Ann Richardson / Elyse Doerflinger <em><a title="Elyse's Genealogy Blog" href="http://elysesgenealogyblog.com" target="_blank">Elyse's Genealogy Blog</a></em></p> <p align="justify">2.&nbsp; I used Google. I have to be honest and say that I'm afraid I didn't learn anything. It was all very mechanistic - just search, copy and paste. Not my favourite challenge.</p> http://cmgurney.blogspot.com/2011/05/sngf-genealogy-scavenger-hunt.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Caroline Gurney)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-612731037367610064.post-5805480713229030162Sat, 30 Apr 2011 21:06:00 +00002011-04-30T22:06:40.226+01:00SoftwareSNGF - "Problems" in your genealogy database<h2 align="justify">The Challenge</h2> <p align="justify">Tonight's challenge from <a title="Randy Seaver" href="http://www.geneamusings.com/2011/04/saturday-night-genealogy-fun-problems.html" target="_blank">Randy Seaver</a> is to:</p> <ol> <li> <div align="justify">Open your genealogy software program and use the Help function to determine how to make a "Problem Report" or "Data Error Report" (or something similar).</div> <li> <div align="justify">Create a "Problem Report" or "Data Error Report" in your software for the persons in your tree (either everyone in the tree, or for a selected number of generations of your ancestors). </div> <li> <div align="justify">Tell us what type of problems or errors your report found.&nbsp; Tell us how many errors were found.&nbsp; Tell us what problem or error surprised you. </div></li></ol> <h2 align="justify">The Results</h2> <ol> <li> <div align="justify">I use Family Tree Maker 2011. I already know how to create a Data Errors Report in that program. Go to the Publish workspace and select Person Reports &gt; Data Errors Report.</div> <li> <div align="justify">I ran a Data Errors Report for All Individuals. I opted to include all errors except "Birth date missing" and "Marriage date missing". I don't regard those as data errors but as research challenges.</div> <li> <div align="justify">My Data Errors Report included nine individuals:</div> <ul> <li> <div align="justify">Two men were flagged: "The name may include a title" because their first name is Dean. These are not data errors.</div> <li> <div align="justify">Three women were flagged: "The individual has the same last name as her husband". In all three cases the women's maiden surnames were indeed the same as their husbands' surnames. These are not data errors.</div> <li> <div align="justify">A husband and wife were both flagged: "This individual's children's sort order may be incorrect". I checked this couple's children in the People workspace, Family view. They were indeed in the wrong sort order, with births in 1892 and 1897 followed by a birth in 1894. I clicked the button to "Sort children by birth order" and the error was corrected.</div> <li> <div align="justify">One person was flagged: "The birth date occurs after the death date". This is a known problem in my tree. <a title="Family Search" href="https://www.familysearch.org/" target="_blank">Family Search</a> shows Steven Martin, son of Alexander Martin and Love Kingston, as having been baptised at Doulting, Somerset on 18 April 1787 but buried there on 29 March 1787. Until I am able to look at the original registers, I am keeping these contradictory dates in my tree, as I do not know which one is incorrect.</div> <li> <div align="justify">One person was flagged: "Baptism date occurred before individual's birth date. The birth date occurred after her father was 80. The birth date occurred more than one year after her father died". This was the result of a data entry error on my part. I had entered an 1827 birth as having occurred in 1847. Correcting the birth date resolved the error.</div></li></ul></li></ol> <p align="justify">I run this report regularly, so wasn't expecting - and didn't find - any major issues. Nonetheless, I did pick up, and was able to correct, two errors in my data. So thank you for the challenge, Randy.</p> http://cmgurney.blogspot.com/2011/04/sngf-in-your-genealogy-database.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Caroline Gurney)3